Fireball Golden Dolphin Series at Shoreham Sailing Club
by Tim Saunders, UKFA 4 Jul 2012 08:59 BST
30 June - 1 July 2012
Big wave fun at Shoreham
"Classic Shoreham" was how some old hands were telling it. "A hard day out", was the message from others. "That's the first time I have ever pitchpoled a Fireball replied another". "That was bloody brilliant, has anyone got a spare mast, rudder pintle, crew" asked others.
Every boat had a different tale to tell when the fleet reconvened over fantastic feast of a BBQ and lashings of beer from the Brighton Brewery.
Saturday afternoon had seen two races in exhilarating and challenging conditions on what must be one of the best pieces of sailing water in the UK. The course was Triangle, Sausage, Sausage, Triangle, set to allow a quick restart of the Osprey fleet who started first. This was wrecked by the leading Fireballs who promtly overtook most of the Ospreys during the race. Sailing upwind was generally ok, downwind was more of a slalom course avoiding the odd capsized boat whilst staying upright. A couple of boats nearly went "Perth" with the enthusiastic photo boat, but the pictures were good.
Sunday brought bigger seas but the thought was to get races in before the wind built up. This was an excellent plan on paper. So out sailed the brave and the stupid for some more acrobatics. Most made it to start area only the find that the race officer had decided that there was now "a bit on" and perhaps it was best advised to reconvene on shore. After some thought as to how to get back downhill the fleet all made it back.
After some number crunching it turned out that Matt Burge and Richard Wagstaff had won the event from Kevin Hope and Russell Thorne and the swimming team of Sam Mettam and Richard Anderton 3rd. Thanks go to Shoreham for an excellent weekend as ever and it was great to see some new faces terrifying themselves! Roll on more of the same next year.
Full results can be found here.