RNLI Shield at Fishers Green Sailing Club
by Christian Hill 31 Oct 2022 05:32 PDT
23 October 2022
Fishers Green RNLI Shield © Angie May
Its a family affair
Sunday 23rd October, and it was time to compete for the RNLI Shield, which was the last of the club championships events, re-scheduled due to the sailing area being hampered by weed. With the weed receding it was back to all systems go, but then rain stopped play, we are a hardy bunch at the green, but with epic downpours and no wind, the AP flag was raised and an hour's postponement was meet by relief from the competitors. Time to down more coffee and peruse the RNLI merchandise.
The rain had stopped and blue sky could be seen, with the breeze building, the fleet made up of entirely single handers, solos,lasers,streaker, made its way to the start line. A steady force 2 from the south-east, made life simple for the race management team of Christian hill, the ever present keeper of the records Allan Hayward, Angie May photography and young Kiran on the flags.
So a simple windward leeward course set, most of the fleet got away cleanly apart from mike Atkinson (Laser 195812) who decided to try and capsize onto the committee boat, 2 penalty turns later, Mike set off after the fleet, led by Graham Newman (Laser 161375) (Mike;s uncle). With race island strategically place slap bang in the middle of the race course, decisions needed to be made of which side to take upwind and downwind, the fleet on the downwind leg went to right, whilst Mike with nothing to lose went to the left and came up trumps, passing his cousin blake Newman (Aero 6 3600), and step-dad Simon Williams (Laser 120300), all this while the Solo fleet had their own private battles.
Mike hit the front overtaking Uncle G (Laser 161375), as they approached the leeward mark for the final time. A Laser podium lockout for race one 1st Mike, 2nd Graham, 3rd Simon.
Race 2 was quickly under way, with am 'if it's not broke don't fix it' attitude, we kept the same course. The fleet went away cleanly again, and considerably tighter together, but it was cousin Blake Newman (Aero 6), Mike Atkinson (Laser) out in front, swapping positions for the lead regularly. Mike was fractionally faster off wind which paid dividends allowing to hold and take the win, 2nd Blake, 3rd Graham Newman (Laser), leading Solo Richard Piper 5th.
For Race 3 the wind had shifted slightly, making the pin end very favourable, Graham Newman nailed the port hand flyer perfectly. Unfortunately this wasn't caught on camera, but it was a thing of beauty. I'm not sure what happened after that, normality resumed as Graham's nephews Blake and Mike had hit the front yet again on the downwind leg. Mike sailed to victory, making it a clean sweep of bullets, Blake cruised in for 2nd, Graham held off his brother-in-law Simon to take 3rd, but the real battle was between Martin Jarvis (Solo 4511) and Nick Pighills (Solo 5249), tack for tack on the last beat, (we had moved the committee boat closer to the clubhouse for a final beat showdown), 20 meters from the finishing line Nick (5249) managed to get in front of Martin (4511) which meant Nick jumped in front of him in the overall results and obviously secured the bragging rights for the bar later.
So Mike won overall, 2nd was cousin Blake, both finished in front of their uncle Graham who in turn sailed Cadets and taught the RO Christian Hill how to sail, and also finished in front of his brother-in-law Simon, whilst on board the committee boat we had young Kiran helping out with the flags while his brother Leo assisted their grandad Richard on the rescue boat, along with his son Matthew, and George (don't think I can find a tenuous family link), a wonderful family affair on a glorious day at the green, with some money raised for the RNLI as well.
Overall Results:
1st Laser, Mike Atkinson
2nd Aero 6, blake Newman
3rd Laser, Graham Newman
4th Laser, Simon Williams
5th Solo, Richard piper
6th Solo, nick Pighill
7th Solo, Martin jarvis
8th Streaker, Roberto Mancini
9th Solo, Peter Hollis