Fireball Open at Shoreham Sailing Club

Merlin & Fireball Open at Shoreham © Warwick Baker / www.warwickpics.com

The Fireballs joined the Merlins for their Shoreham open. As always, Shoreham served up world beating conditions – sunshine, wind, waves.

Though the fleet was somewhat depleted due to the Fireball Europeans in Garda, 2 of the top 3 in the worlds last year showed up as practice for the upcoming nationals. Other local travellers and a couple of home boats made up the fleet.

From the outset, the wind was going to make it a testing and fun weekend. The race officer set short triangle-sausage courses.

Racing on Saturday took a theme – Tom Gillard and Richard Anderton comfortably won all three races, with Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey coming in second – though closing the gap each race as they got to grips with a borrowed boat and unfamiliar sails.

Rick Cornes and James Goodfellow looked threatening for second place at times, but they just fell short.

Saturday evening saw the usual Shoreham BBQ and social in full swing.

Sunday brought more of the same conditions, and with the forecast for an increase in the wind later on, the RO was keen to get on the water. The fireball fleet was slightly depleted with the home team of Martin Walker and Wendy Wood staying ashore to help with the results, and Maia Walsh and Peter Bentley saving their energy for the coming weekend.

Jazz Sayed and John Piatt took to the water, completing the first race of the day, but calling it quits after a couple of capsizes left them drained.

Tobie Hamer and Torie Morley slugged out all 3 races, and up the first beat of the final race looked like coming out first at the windward mark.

After a great weekend racing in some testing conditions the fleet are ready for the UKGlobal Nationals which start on Thursday at Hayling Island.

Overall Results: