Fox's Marine and Country Alton Water Frostbite Series 2014 - Overall

Lasers on their way to spacer mark on day 9 of the Alton Water Frostbite Series © Bob 'Smudger' Aldous-Horne

Spot the odd ones out on day 9 of the Alton Water Frostbite Series © Bob 'Smudger' Aldous-Horne

That's it for 2014. All races completed. Read on for the final report and see you all again next year.

How do we do it? Yet another weather window that gave us a 12 increasing to 20mph south westerly in this part of East Anglia. Only to go home after the prize-giving to be greeted by 30mph and rain!

There was another excellent turnout with a last minute focus on winning impressive club trophies, accompanied by some substantial financial input from Fox's Marine and Country, who provided store vouchers as prizes.

The briefing set the poser 'guess the course' – a rather cynical approach as the wind has been from the same direction for 80% of the series racing – no correct answers were forthcoming as, just to be different, a spacer mark was set after the second windward leg to give a true run down to the start of the leeward reach.

With the sun shining and a moderate breeze to get the competitors out to the far NW (Tattingstone not Manchester) start line, it was looking like a gentle conclusion to the series but then the wind went up a few forces and with it clouding over, we were back to average racing conditions for this Frostbite series. Perhaps 2015 will bring something different?

For this week the start line was moved further up the windward leg to ensure both the pin end buoy and committee boat would stay attached to the bottom of the reservoir. For the first race of the day the shifts came through alternating the favoured end of the line. We had the occasional port tack flier taking a chance and then at the next start the committee boat was getting bumped with people forcing their way in.

A big "thank you" to Cherril of Fox's (www.foxsmarina.com/chandlery-outdoor) who came along to present the prizes and, with competitors taking away trophies and vouchers and the volunteers receiving flowers, chocolates and wine, a lot of people left Alton Water happy. To any not so fortunate sailors this year, please come back and try again next year.

Read on for race by race action highlights from the four fleets and overall series results:

• in the Fast Handicap fleet a smaller than usual number of boats had some excellent racing with the Phantoms fighting out it out for overall glory and the Merlin making one of its occasional returns to Alton Water to show how it could and should be done at the front of the fleet. A mention must be made of the competitive RS400s who, having been to the Dinghy Show the previous day, were well fired up. To see the near-foiling (without the foils) RS400s was a sight to behold, as was the leeward tree line as they had to drop their asymmetrics.

• the Lasers as ever had close racing with pressure on the class leader to maintain his position in what might have been seen as non-favourable (to him) conditions. In the end any concern was misplaced as, with a new face at the front and some hiccups further down the fleet, consistency over the 18 races paid off and his position at the top of the fleet's results was not threatened. An attempted pin end port tack start met with disaster for both the port tacker and the leeward starboard boat that shut him out, with both boats capsizing. This gave a chance to others to sail away... which they did and even extended their lead.

• in the Medium handicap fleet with a full contingent of Larks and OKs, it was left to the local Finns to give them a run for their money which they did on the water but just not by enough on handicap. Some concern that the numbers in this fleet would cause starting problems were ill-founded with a good spread across the line. Great spinnaker work from the Larks and RS200s was well rewarded, and the inverse applied; a messy drop or gybe resulted in a capsize. A date for one of the leading OKs at the Dinghy show perhaps detracted from a top three position but I'm sure was worthwhile for the class.

• there was a full house in the Slow handicap fleet with Cadets, Toppers and Topazs all appearing on the start line – it must have been a non-training weekend. Two two-lap races were set and with the wind increasing and some of the safety boats called in to assist, numbers were unsurprisingly down slightly for the last race of the day. The second lap of both races allowed the fleet to spread out considerably and planing Cadets had some excitement as they approached the leeward marks. The lighter Topper sailors have persevered with the larger rig all series but perhaps just today they were over-sailed. As ever those game Topazs, mostly from Brightlingsea, had fun on fresh water.

Race 17 & 18 Provisional Results:

Overall Results:

With 134 entries for the series this was one of the most successful yet.

Alton Water Frostbite Series prize winners - photo © Stewart Berry

Series prizes also went to:

1st Overall (Cdr John Lamb Trophy)
Alan Krailing and Annie Knott, Lark

1st Lady Helm:
Fiona Gray, Lark

1st Youth Helm:
Charlie Linsell, Laser

1st Junior Helm:
Ashley Deaton, Topper

Endurance Award: (completed all 18 races)
Chris Spark, Laser

Perseverance Award: (Roy Whithell QGM Trophy)
Chloe Walker, Topaz

Full race by race results and overall position to date can be found at www.altonwater.co.uk/index.php?pid=167&series=346&full_series_fleet=346

Please contact the office or call 01473 328408 regarding any queries.