ILCA Midland Grand Prix at Attenborough Sailing Club

ILCA Midland Grand Prix at Attenborough Sailing Club © Roger Day

A mixed fleet of ILCA 6 and 7s took to the water at Attenborough today representing eight different clubs.

Three races were held under clear blue skies but with a ESE wind direction it wasn't ideal for a perfect course due to islands within the small lake. However, the fleet got away for a clean start with a beat to the first mark followed by a very broad reach to the second. Even after this short period of the race the front runners were becoming clear. A second beat, a short reach and then a run along the whole length of the lake took the fleet back to the downwind mark and thus the start of a beat taking the boats through the gate and to repeat for a total of three laps.

John Ling (219358 ILCA7, Bartley SC) came through the finish line first after leading throughout 30 seconds before Paul Keeling (108827 ILCA7, Blithfield SC) who had been trailing John all the way around. Archie Munro-Price (222281 CCSC) a junior, led the ILCA 6 visitors and finished 5th on corrected times.

After lunch two races were held back to back. Both races got away cleanly with some impressive control by a number of the fleet maintaining station on the start line. John Ling managed to get well clear of the fleet on the second lap being approximately a minute in front of John Richardson (215693 ILCA7, Trent Valley SC) and with Archie just 10 seconds further back with his smaller sail. Further down the fleet a number of place changes were continually taking place. Some of the changes could certainly be put down to the wind changing direction and strength turning beats into a fetch and broad reaches into close reaches. There were periods when boats almost had no way and next minute planning.

The last race was much closer between John and Paul yet again at the front. Christine Stratham (182627 ILCA7, ASC) had her best race of the day coming over the line in third just managing to beat another home club member Mike Pritchard (137398 ILCA7, ASC) by just 2 seconds but they were all beaten by Archie on corrected time.

Overall Results: