West Country Boat Repairs 2000 Millennium Series at Weir Wood Sailing Club

Round 1 of the West Country Boat Repairs 2000 Millennium Series hosted by Weir Wood SC was extremely eventful over the weekend of April 20/21.

Very shifty patchy wind with some real fruity gusts throughout kept everyone on their toes with thrills, spills, stories, snakes and ladders for the whole 23 boat fleet on every single lap. This was manic stuff but richly entertaining.

As usual the excellent race team did well to fit in 6 true races using every inch of water space to fit in a big enough loop in the really unhelpful northerly blowing across the shortest part of the reservoir. It did mean we all lost count of how many laps we had completed.

There was never a quiet moment at the front with constant place changing and at the end of the first day Rob/Gemma Burridge, Paul Cullen/Colin Hatton and Jonathan/Louisa Ching were all tied on 7pts. Paul should have been racing with regular crew Fresh but his car broke down again on the M5 so Colin Hatton heroically stepped into the front of the boat despite having known Spanner for 30 years and somehow got him to the front of the fleet. Pete Vincent/Kirsten Glen were also very handily placed with 1.4 results but had lost a 2nd place in race 1 when at the 4th leeward gate a jib sheet got trapped in the ring of a quick pin pulling it out as they gybed round the mark entertaining everyone as the mast gracefully went over the side.

The Burridge's then joined in making life difficult for themselves by capsizing in the lead in the first race on Sunday. They made no mistake in race 5 leading throughout to win to set a very tight last race. Adrian and Roz Stell rounded off a good weekend by making full use of the conditions to score a race win. The Burridge's were always well placed and ahead of their overall challengers to finish second with Paul/Colin third. This gave Burridge's overall victory by a point from Paul/Colin with Jon/Louisa third and first family.

2000 Millennium Series at Weir Wood - overall winners Rob and Gemma Burridge - photo © Vince White

2000 Millennium Series at Weir Wood - 2nd overall Paul Cullen and Colin Hatton - photo © Vince White

The outstanding performance of the weekend though was from Miles Wade and Jaz Turner who finished 8th overall and first in silver division. Jaz was born with a progressive condition which causes her joints to dislocate and has to use a wheel chair extensively on shore. In Jaz's own words "I won't lie, sailing the boat was massively tricky, but with a bit of stubborn persistence and working out how to do things, I proved that my disability does not limit me. I often feel that as a disabled person, I get put into a box and told what I can and can not do. We'll this weekend was me well and truly busting out of the box and proving anything really is possible if you're willing to try. I couldn't have done this weekend without the amazing 2000 fleet who fully accepted me back into the family. I massive thanks to Miles for taking a chance on me" A true inspiration to us all whose spirit made your reporter feel very humble.

2000 Millennium Series at Weir Wood - 3rd overall Miles Wade and Jaz Turner - photo © Vince White

Many thanks to Weir Wood SC for yet again being magnificent friendly hosts. Please take the time to ready this www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-weir-wood-sailing-club. Clubs like Weir Wood are the total bed rock of UK dinghy sailing, they are a fantastic club and boy do we need them to survive.

The next round of the West Country Boat Repairs 2000 Millennium Series is at Castle Cove on May 18/19 can it be anywhere near as eventful?

Overall Results: