Magic Marine Topper Inlands at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Magic Marine Topper Inlands race 3 start © John Knapton

Magic Marine Topper Inlands prizewinners © Tim Yeates

258 sailors from all around the UK had entered for the Magic Marine Topper Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club and the first morning was taken up with preparing their boats for action on this fine sailing water. At the 10:30 competitor briefing the Commodore, Hilary Talbot, was pleased to welcome the Topper fraternity for the 23rd time at Grafham, the siblings of sailors were pleased to be told of the availability of an xbox to while away time in the lounge area!. PRO for the weekend was Peter Saxton who had assembled a strong race management team, the sailors were warned that the forecast for Saturday was light airs with Sunday due to bring in a cold but stronger breeze, they were also warned to expect guns instead of hooters for the sound signals.

The forecast was not wrong & the sailors were held onshore as the 12:30 planned start time passed. The wind appeared variable in strength & direction, swinging through 90degrees or so around the NNW to NE directions. Sailors in this fleet are well used to amusing themselves onshore, groups of friends could be seen huddled around the dinghy park chatting or playing football as parental support teams checked over boats, equipment & the coffee bar in the clubhouse. The PRO was waiting for the wind to settle down and a couple of Tannoy announcements alerted the sailors to prepare for launch before the signal to go on the water was given just before 2pm. The wind strength was light but sailable on launch but unfortunately decided to drop to nothing before reappearing from a slightly different direction a few times. The sailors made the most of the time on the water by rafting together to continue the conversations from the dinghy park – eventually, after a couple of hours wait, the decision was taken to send the fleet back to shore to await further instructions. That instruction came after another wait, it was decided to abandon racing for the day due to the lack of a constant wind direction & velocity. More fun & games were had by the sailors onshore before the fleet settled down for the evening to prepare for the next days racing – the onsite campers prepared as best they could for a rain storm to arrive overnight.

Sunday dawned and it was indeed the different day that was forecast. Clouds, Rain and a very cold moderate breeze from the NE! – no problems with wind direction or velocity today!! The sailors prepared for 4 races back to back & launched on time for a 10:30 1st start. The launch was interesting, 250+ boats into an onshore wind with waves, luckily a volunteer force of parents slipped on drysuits to assist and all the contestants were soon on their way to the start. The wind was 15mph at the start to race one but there were occasional gusts of up to 27mph so this was definitely going to be a hard sail, the course was set with a 1000m beat to the windward mark & 3 beats. The winners of Race 1 were Kieran Hill & Oliver Machell from Hector Simpson & Gavin Page in second with Tobias Hamer & Ellie Meopham in third – 221 sailors finished Race1.

For Race 2 the wind had slipped slightly to 13mph gusting to 24mph, the number of beats was reduced to 2 but the windward mark was extended to 1100m. The 2nd set of flights needed a General Recall which sent up the Black flag, whilst no sailors infringed this rule the flag stayed out for the rest of the day. Kieran Hill recorded his 2nd win of the day with Ellie Meopham, Tobias Hamer & Hector Simpson got 2nds with Ashley Greenall & Edward Jones taking the 3rd places. It’s interesting to note that the 1st reefed Topper was sailed into a top 30 position, there were many sailors who started to tire by this stage and as the gusts had increased to 26/28mph many headed for shore, 171 boats finished race 2.

As Race 3 got underway the wind was recorded at 20mph but the gusts were more powerful still. Tobias Hamer spotted the opportunity & executed a fantastic Port end flyer, crossing the fleet by a clear 50 metres he went on to take the race win – Nice one!, Ollie Wright was the 2nd winner of Race 3 & promptly sailed straight to shore – he was particularly interested in the football results & was desperate for news about the relegation battles!. Kieran Hill secured a 2nd along with Ellie Meopham whilst Tom Sully & Giles Kuzyk took the 3rd places. The 1st reefed boat finished in the top 20 as the wind rose to a maximum gust of 31mph at 14:13 during this race. The fleet suffered further retirements as the wind strength took its toll on the competitors, 127 managed to finish Race 3 and many of those sailed to shore after the finish to try to get a short respite. With the fleet size slashed to less than half the PRO decided that enough was enough & that there would be no further racing for the day – there were no objections.

With his 2 bullets, Kieran Hill was the clear winner becoming the 2010 Magic Marine Topper Inland Champion on 4 points from Tobias Hamer 2nd who pipped Ellie Meopham into 3rd drawing on 6 points. The 1st reefed Topper finished in the top 1/3rd of the fleet which shows just how well suited the Topper is to a wide range of sailors in that a level of competitiveness can be maintained by reducing the sail area allowing lighter sailors to still compete in strong winds.

The Rescue crews were very much appreciated today, as was the coxes garage which was the receiving point for sailors brought ashore where hot chocolate was administered for warmth. All the sailors have their own tales to tell & discussions were going on late into the journeys home via SMS, Facebook, MSN etc etc.

Overall Results: