Magic Marine Topper Winter Regatta at Rutland Sailing Club

Launching at the Magic Marine Topper Winter Regatta © Tim Yeates

Post launch at the Magic Marine Topper Winter Regatta © Tim Yeates

It was quite a mixed forecast for the weekend of the 20th/21st February when the Topper Family met up with Team Rutland for the Magic Marine Topper Winter Regatta. The Topper family was over 200 strong on this occasion, including 21 Topper 4.2’s who shared this venue for their 1st ever National Series Event, Team Rutland managed to get them all into the dinghy park in extremely slick & obviously well rehearsed fashion. It is over 3 months since the last Topper National event & many sailors have been undergoing winter training in their various squads, all have been eager to put this coaching into practise. Charles Glover, ITCA GBR class Chairman welcomed everyone to the event, many hands went up when asked if this was their first national event and what a great event this was to be for a first taste of big fleet sailing.

The biggest concern from the forecast was the temperature, with daytime highs of just a few degrees over zero & light airs the safety element of the main briefing asked the sailors not to succumb to being victims of fashion but to dress properly for the conditions. The Drysuit is often not perceived as a cool fashion accessory but it really does work & those that wore them appeared to have a definite advantage which became more apparent as the day wore on.

In the main fleet 188 Toppers were ready to go in time for the expected noon 1st race start, 188 helms were dressed ready for the water & gathered in groups chatting & assessing the lake, wind forecast, lunch, facebook profiles maybe – well who knows – they all appeared happy to be there! The only thing that was missing was the wind. The PRO, William Jeffcoate, was struggling to set a course with the wind flicking direction but it settled to what seemed a steady 6-7 knots westerly as forecast and so the fleet was released after a 10-15 minute delay. No sooner was everyone afloat than the wind died completely and the sailors had to pump their way (in an exuberant but orderly fashion) to the far end of the lake. The wind came back as they arrived and was slightly stronger, but had veered by 30 degrees. The course was reset and the starting sequence commenced for race 1. Having been practising starts all winter, they were keen and (perhaps predictably) pushed the line too hard and a general recall meant that it was black flag starts from then on. This was in contrast to the new 4.2 fleet – enjoying their first National Series Event – who behaved impeccably and had P flag starts throughout.

It took 3 and a half hours to complete two races and it was getting bitterly cold, the fleet was towed back to shore as the wind finally died off. The fleet was split into 4 flights, each race was therefore split into 2 which meant 2 winners to each race – 2 pairs of races were managed on day one before the fleet was brought ashore, many of the sailors were quite cold by this time & therefore it was a prudent decision to cut the day short. 4 different sailors took race wins, George Meredith from Grafham Water was the overnight leader from Irish sailor Finn Lynch of Blessington SC, Youth sailors James Wilson from Rollesby Broad SC and Sarah Yeates from Leigh & Lowton SC who had just renamed her boat “The Swan Song” took the remaining race wins.

It snowed quite hard overnight and there was an inch of snow on the ground on Sunday morning with Icebergs spotted on the lake and blizzard conditions at 8am, the lane to the club resembled a cross between the Olympic bobsleigh and giant slalom courses and some got out to walk the downhill sections – quite an adventure really! One or two onlookers mentioned “glad I’m not sailing in that cold” however this was just the parental support & the sailors themselves were keen to go sailing. Only a couple of those who had furthest to travel packed up early, the bulk of the fleet remained – very impressive considering the conditions & the cold of the previous day that could easily have put more sailors off. The decision was made to sail as planned, but closer to the clubhouse for safety with an earlier finish to aid the drive home later in the day. Whilst the fleet was waiting for the launch signal, snowball scurmishes broke out across the dinghy park, this was extremely lighthearted, and everyone involved seemed to have fun.

As for the racing on day 2 - the wind was swinging between SE and SW but it was eventually possible to set up an unusually short beat of 025nm as a result of sailing close to the clubhouse, this held for the first race. The weather picked up as time went by, as well: it stopped snowing and the sun came out. Even so, everyone wanted to pack up as quickly as they could and it was a pity that another 30 degree wind shift meant that the course had to be swung between Race 3 and 4, and there were then further delays as a result of general recalls. The view from the Committee Boat was that the main fleet were exceptionally good-natured and sailed well and with very few infingements But if they made a mistake, it was that they didn’t study the start line well enough. It was the same on both days, but more obvious on the Sunday – because when there is a long line for a short beat, it can mean that both ends can be favoured – especially (as is so common at Rutland) when the wind at the two ends is very different. The port end was favoured – as one or two independent-minded sailors realised, but despite this the majority bunched near the Committee Boat and with same playing Russian roulette with the line as well, there was 18 BFD disqualifications in the final race alone, despite the best efforts of most. Finn Lynch secured his second win of the event which also secured an impressive overall win on 5 points, Flip Foulds from Norfolk Broads SC showed a return to form by taking 2 wins on day 2 but this was only sufficient to move her up into 4th place overall, the winner of the other race was West Zone sailor Dan Venables from Sutton SC who showed the whole fleet the way to go in the 1st race of the day – nice one Dan! George Meredith took 2nd place overall and Andrew Green from Leigh & Lowton SC took 3rd place overall both with consistent sailing...

Armfuls of Magic Marine prizes were awarded to the top 18 sailors in the event in addition to some rather attractive Awards and the ICOM Trophy that was added to the haul of Finn Lynch – the endeavour prize for the lowest placed sailor who finished all the races was wone by new class member James Crampton from Upton Warren in 175th place – great enthusiasm in really quite testing conditions. In summing up the event, Charles Glover thanked Magic Marine the event Sponsor, Team Rutland, PRO William Jeffcoate & his team, the safety officers, beachmaster & class Judge for their help. An event of this scale takes an enormous amount of planning & with this being “The Freindly Class” there is an abundance of willing volunteers that just keep coming back to help. Next National Event – National Series 1 at Datchet 17th April – watch out for another excellent turnout – keep up to date with what is going on at www.gbrtopper.co.uk/news.php

Overall Results: