Comet Open at Up River Yacht Club

Six visiting Comets joined the single local boat at Up River Yacht Club for the club's annual open meeting shared with the large local Lightning fleet. Visitors came from as far away as south Devon to race on the River Crouch in Essex in a light force 1-2.

For the five minutes before the start of race one there was very nearly no wind. This left a good part of lightning fleet stranded on the start line trying to sail upwind against the tide when the comet start was due. Luckily the wind turned on just before the gun sounded letting the fleet get away relatively cleanly.

This light wind race was lead for most of the first leg by Chris Robinson, one the fleet's heavy weather experts. As the race wore on he gradually dropped back to fifth with Eddie Pope taking the win followed by Michael Ettershank in 2nd and Izac Dodds in 3rd.

Race two started with more wind and this time Michael and Eddie seemed to find the most of it and built up a reasonable lead. During a long upwind leg Eddie took the lead and held it to the finish, thus sealing the win at another open meeting. Most of the rest of fleet stayed together with Bob Dodds taking 3rd place on the reach from Izac, which he held to the end.

After this race the fleet came off the water for possibly the shortest tea and cake break on the circuit before the tide rushes back out to the North Sea.

At the start of the third race once again the wind was rather light but with the tide now going out this didn't present any problems getting to the windward mark. However on the run the entire fleet struggled to make much head way and tried to stay close to the north bank out of the tide. This lead to Henry Jaggers gently running aground twice against the sea wall. There turned out to be even less wind in the that part of the river, which resulted in all seven boats plus a pair lightnings running line abreast. With the tide strengthening and the wind continuing to be weak the fleet was turned early for a short tide assisted leg to the finish. On the approach to the finish the family rivalry between Bob and his son Izac resulted in Bob aggressively luffing thus allowing Chris to win, followed by Izac in 2nd while Robyn Hadley in her first Open Meeting took 3rd.

With the racing finished the fleet finally sat down to an excellent late lunch of chilli and baked potatoes.

Overall Results: