2022 Bartley Beast Round 4

Bartley Beast Round 4 © Howard Eeles & Alan Bowler

Matt Biggs & Mark Fowler win the double-handers in the 2023 Bartley Beast © Howard Eeles & Alan Bowler

Andy Davis wins the single-handers in the 2023 Bartley Beast © Howard Eeles & Alan Bowler

Our four-part winter series has come to an end and this year's "Bartley Beast" has been decided after a stunning day of racing. The series attracted a total of 103 boats and 135 sailors from 19 different clubs.

Congratulations to our top placed sailors and to the whole fleet who didn't make it easy for them. This is the second year of the Beast format of two races a day for single and double handed fleets held over four Saturdays during the four winter months.

The final day brought a cool south south westerly of 8-15 knots giving the duty crew led by Steve Ward and his team the chance to use the length of the reservoir. On the day, Bartley sailors Sam Knight and Chris Bownes came away on top in the double handed fleet in their RS400 ahead of a Merlin Rocket sailed by Richie Adams and Jason Larner followed by Charlie Chandler and Russ Hopkins in their 505. It was great to see the Merlin and Albacore fleets well represented again and the wider mixed fleet made for some dynamic double handed racing.

In the single-handed races, the OKs of Nick Craig and Andy Davis ended with a domineering performance to finish top of the fleet followed by the Phantom of Richard Nurse. A special mention to Sam Knight who sailed all four races on our final day claiming a 3rd in the last single handed race in his Supernova to go with two bullets in the double hander.

As this was the fourth and final event of the series, the overall results were decided with six of the eight races to count. This year it was the turn of the double handed fleet to determine the overall winner, Matt Biggs and Mark Fowler are now the proud owners of our new Beast trophy, have a look at the pictures [here], and they really did show us how it's done putting in an impressive set of results across all four events in the series. Julian Harms and George Bender placed second overall for the double handers in the Merlin Rocket and Chris Martin and Josh Oates took third in the Scorpion, an impressive achievement for a new pairing.

In the single handers Andy Davis finished the series with top three finishes to count securing the overall title in his OK closely challenged by Nick Craig throughout the series making for some very exciting viewing for the double handers over lunch. Les Druyf represented Bartley at the front of the fleet and was first Bartley boat, placing fourth overall.

Bartley Beast Round 4 - photo © Howard Eeles & Alan Bowler

The committee would like to thank everyone who made this event possible including all duty crews, and, Tilley's, the Bartley galley. We look forward to planning and delivering an even better Bartley Beast series next year!

Overall Results: