RG65 Travellers Trophy at Birkenhead Radio Sailing & Power Club

Over the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd March, skippers from across the UK descended on Birkenhead RS&PC for the first two rounds of the 2025 TT Series.

Weather wise, it was a weekend of two halves. On the Saturday for the first TT of the weekend the wind, after some early indecision, finally settled into a broadly ESE direction allowing a Windward/Leeward course to be set using the whole of the lake. Whilst the direction was reasonably good there were still some big shifts which would test the race team early on when trying to set the start line, as well as the competitors who could experience some big gains if they got it right...and losses if not!

After a short briefing, the fleet of 17 RG65's got started on time in a decent mid to top suit A swing rig breeze, with just a couple of boats using a full sized conventional rig. The day was sailed at a decent but steady pace of 4 races followed by a break for a drink or lunch, with 16 races completed by the time the wind shut down (well actually reversed direction!) at around 16:00.

RG65 Travellers Trophy, day 1 - photo © Paul Plested

The day belonged to Alan Bennett sailing an Ivy with 7 wins, with 5 of those on the bounce early on in the day. Tobi Laux, also racing an Ivy, bagged four wins and Graham Elliott, sailing an Electronica, won three races. Martin Roberts (Uno) and Bill Culshaw (Ivy) scored one first each. Aside from these race winners, a number of boats had some good results and even had the lead at some point, but unfortunately never quite made that elusive first place. Chris Elliott had a number of seconds after a difficult start to the day missing the first two races with gear problems. Peter Baldwin also had a good day, but never managed to capitalise on some decent mid race positions. Vernon Appleton and Roger Hopper also found some pace at times with Vernon picking up a second and third. John Tushingham, despite scoring several top three positions was just off the pace in what was a very competitive field.

As the full results sheet below show, Alan Bennett not surprisingly won the day on 25 points, with Tobias Laux second on 32 points and then Graham Elliott in third on 41. It was close for fourth to seventh place with only 6 points separating these 4 boats.

RG65 Travellers Trophy, day 2 - photo © Paul Plested

If Saturday was close to champagne conditions, Sunday was more of a stale beer day in comparison, with competitors greeted to early morning drizzle and no wind on the lake for round two of the TT series.

With what little wind there was coming across the lake, the RO and chief wader Paul Plested was kept busy most of the day moving marks around in an attempt to create a course that allowed for some racing without it being a procession.

RG65 Travellers Trophy, day 2 - photo © Paul Plested

Racing started from the clubhouse end, then the fickle wind had other ideas and we sailed the opposite way around for a short while before returning to something like the original course. As the wind came and went, race durations extended to 20minutes for two laps, so regular movement of the windward marks, either shortening or lengthening the beat was required. The breeze did pick up and straighten to come from the far end of the lake for the last three races, but after the earlier difficult sessions racing finished at around 3pm after 12 races had been completed.

As for the racing, it was John Tushinghams' turn to be leader of the pack with five wins from the 12 races sailed to take the overall win. Next in terms of race wins was Tobias Laux with 4 wins, but relegated to third place by Alan Bennett with just two (all sailing Ivys) and Peter Baldwin (Uno) with one. Bill Culshaw sailed consistently all day and took the fourth place overall, leaving a clutch of four Ivy's at the top of the leader board. Peter Baldwin and Robert Macintosh were both sailing Uno's and picked up fifth and sixth spots.

RG65 Travellers Trophy, day 1 - photo © Paul Plested

We should have had fifteen boats racing today, but unfortunately one boat had terminal arm winch failure before we started sailing. Another couple of boats had issues which put paid to their event and an early homeward journey. Chris Elliott was one of these, which was unfortunate as, just like on Saturday, he had shown good boat speed in a number of races, but unfortunately was having technical issues again for most of the day, which had stopped him from posting a good overall result.

RG65 Travellers Trophy, day 1 - photo © Paul Plested

Special mention also to our Junior member George Bennett, who stuck at it on both days, with what can only be described as very tricky wind conditions the day, finishing 11th overall with a number of eight and ninth places and a prize for being first junior.

Thanks go to Paul Plested and wife Sharon for running the racing on both days, assisted on Sunday by Malcolm Harvey carrying out the scoring, and to Joss Watkinson for managing the galley all weekend.

Overall Results: