Topper SW Traveller Series at Saltash Sailing Club

Topper SW Traveller Series at Saltash © James Mills

Many thanks to Saltash Sailing club for a fantastic traveller weekend. Nothing was too much trouble for SSC.

Saturday brought light winds and sunshine for the training day and lead coach Mark Ripley and Oli Hale supported by James Mills and Neil Trathen put the young sailors through their paces working on 'tidal currents' and strategies and speed to cope.

Great to have plenty of new faces to Topper sailing. There was plenty to learn and a great day was had by all.

After a murky start to the day, Sunday also delivered sunshine and light winds for race day. Victory Montgomery won the first race.

In challenging conditions with the breeze up and down and the occasional 180 shift, in the second race the wing mark became particularly difficult. When the wind dropped completely and the fleet clumped together while Tomas extended his lead.

Amelia Gilboy and Edward Lee made the decision to sail low and find the wind coming up towards the windward mark and Victory Montgomery put a short tack in to find the wind that was coming from the windward mark - in the end by the leeward mark the wind had picked up slightly and Edward Victory and Amelia were in close contention.

Topper SW Traveller Series at Saltash - photo © James Mills

After the first and second races when hunger kicked in, Tomas discovered the significant advantages of the newly designed boat... two hatches hiding copious amounts of food and water.

The Race team led by Bill Pym did a great job of getting four races sailed back to back.

It was great to see so many new faces to the circuit and a strong local contingent all with a massive smile on their faces. Literally every one was a winner, with a table rammed full of high quality prizes, at the prize-giving every sailor took their turn in reverse order to choose from the table a prize.

It is not often that the value of each prize is worth more than the entry fee!

Some excellent performances stand out. Leo Kaneko was not entered late for Sunday's racing and did amazingly in his first event coming eleventh. Tom Smith won the 4.2s often rounding the top mark in the top five or six.

Relative newcomers to the class Feva sailor Nicola Richards from Castle Cove and Tom Wills from Saltash did amazingly to finish fourth and fifth overall breaking up the SW RTG pack from the front end of the fleet. Ed Lee was the top Saltash boat finishing third overall again.

Topper SW Traveller Series at Saltash - photo © James Mills

The dreaded third gets the dubious privilege of composing a report to Yachts & Yachting but somehow Edward Lee managed to convince Victory Montgomery, who came second overall despite a broken bailer, to take pity on him and write this.

Thanks very much to Saltash and all their volunteers - you did an amazing job. See you next year. Next round is at Castle Cove SC on June 3rd / 4th. Entries will open in the next few days. We can't wait.

Overall Results:

Topper SW Traveller Series at Saltash - photo © James Mills