North West Senior Travellers at Elton Sailing Club
by Dave Woodhead 8 Sep 2022 05:14 PDT
6 September 2022
North West Senior Travellers at Elton © Dave Scott
The final round of the 2022 senior travellers series took place at Elton Sailing Club on Tuesday 6th September. After two years of the series being hit by Covid competitors were looking forward to a full series in 2022. We nearly managed it with six out of the seven scheduled events taking place.
Numbers were down a little this year due to a variety of reasons, including some windless weather forecasts and a very windy forecast on one occasion. Nevertheless 46 boats took part in one or more of the events with entries ranging from 28 to 12 at different clubs.
It was another windless day at Elton resulting in a delayed start although things did improve slightly in the afternoon. The overall winner was last years series winner Mark Platt in his Supernova from Bolton Sailing Club, second was another previous series winner Mark Fearnley in a Blaze from South Windermere Sailing Club and the top three was completed by Darren Nield from the home club in a Solo.
The Grand Master prize went to Dave Woodhead in a another Solo from the home club.
For the series this year it was all about doing enough travelling to register enough results to qualify, with several key competitors this year being forced to count DNCs. Having said this we did end up with very well deserved winner in Andy Flitcroft from Bolton Sailing Club in his Supernova. Andy competed in all six events and won three of them outright
The top ten in the series were:
1. Andy Flitcroft, Supernova
2. Dave Woodhead, Solo and first Grand Master (70+)
3. Martin Cooper, Ilya
4. Mark Platt, Supernova and first Master (60+)
5. Martin McKettrick, Streaker
6. Charlie Adams and Martin Butcher, Enterprise and first Double Hander
7. Mark Cuthbert, Blaze
8. Ian Lees, D zero / Ilca
9. Dave Southwell and Angela Raines, Miracle
10. Richard Catchpole, Solo
The club prize for the the top three boats from one club went to Bolton SC.
Full details of the series and all the results can be found by joining the Facebook group North West Dinghy Sailors Senior Traveller Series.
The series has now been running for 11 years and remains popular amongst the over 50s in the North West. With 7 mid week events at different clubs in fairly close proximity and an entry fee of just £5 per event it is a cheap, convenient way for NW sailors to have a friendly, local open meeting series.