Easter Regatta at Burghfield Sailing Club
by Nigel Rolfe, Commodore 6 Apr 2021 10:14 BST
3-5 April 2021
Easter Regatta at Burghfield © Nigel Rolfe
With travel restrictions in place at Burghfield this Easter, you could easily imagine yourself to be in the tropics with the beautiful sunshine and the blue of the lake.
Burghfield, or locally now known as Burghbados, held its Easter Regatta thanks to the easing of lockdown restrictions. The new canopy and outdoor changing proved invaluable given indoor space restrictions whilst the beach area was sufficient for social distancing. We had 97 online entrants over the three days, so; we also joined forces with SailRacer to track the morning pursuit races and help us with results given the number of boats! It proved very useful!
The racing format was a 100-minute pursuit in the morning and a handicap race in the afternoon. This combination proved to be very popular with the sailors.
To get everyone back into the groove on Saturday, we had clouds and a nice and steady force four. Sunday, competitors were greeted to the sounds of Simply Tropical as they rigged in the glorious sunshine. Monday brought a mix of the two days with sunshine, a good breeze and a flurry of snow. Overall we had 70 boats who completed at least one race and many more watching the live tracker action at home! I even had my daughter, who isn't a sailor, ask me, "why did you let the RS400 pass you in the pursuit?". It was a welcomed return to sailing for all. It was a battle of the giants with Nick Craig and Toby Tastic up against Steve and Sarah Cockerill at the front of the fleet.
Mike Lyons in his shiny new Blaze was in the third spot only to have it snatched away from him by Joesph Jones in his Optimist. Joesph was one of nine junior/youth sailors who took part over the weekend.
The capsize award goes to Mike Bell in his Blaze, who made a masterful decision to go between the islands to gain on the boats upfront only to bin it on the gybe. On Monday, with the gusty conditions, it was ideal for the gybe award, and that goes to Jon Ibbotson in his National 12, who failed to gybe - a little rusty perhaps? But, aren't we all!!
It was a fantastic return to sailing and great to see the range of classes and competitors on the water. Even better was the smiles on the faces of everyone who took part. A very big thank you to our safety and race teams, without whom this would not have been possible.