Frensham Pond Sailing Club Ten Hour Race raising money for Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care
by Clive Eplett 6 Jul 2018 08:01 BST
30 June 2018
Frensham Pond SC Ten Hour Race © Clive Eplett
Once upon a time, some enthusiastic youngsters decided it would be a fun to have a 24 hour race at Frensham Pond SC, in honour of the iconic event held annually at Southport. There was no wind, a pea-souper fog in the dark where you could not see the jib, let alone the next mark and all in all, it was hardly what was hoped for.
Nevertheless, from that acorn grew Frensham's charity-fund-raising let's-skip-the-all-night-bit 10-hour race that runs from a slightly more civilised 9am to 7pm, leaving time for a nice meal to some great music and the chance to sleep in a your own bed.
Last year's event was a belter; the wind was relatively light but, after 10 hours and 11 crew swap-overs (at the end of each 50 minute session) the two leading Solos were 3 boat lengths apart at the finish. Two Lasers crossed the line 40 yards apart but were split on corrected time by the Lark team. How do you follow that?
Well, as it happens, it seems you can. Firstly, the wind came out to play. Secondly, we avoided clashes with Hansa events and the Around the Island Race (yeah, go figure; but it seems to make a difference) but were missing the 2.4s and Teras, with events else where, which was a shame. The Cadet sailors all opted to sail something else, mainly 200s and 4.7s. All in all, this gave 16 entries, equating to 90 or so sailors participating, plus Sailability helpers, shore and safety crews etc. And of course we are in a summer-of-76 echo - there was nary a cloud in the sky. It was truly glorious.
The entertainment at the race's start was multiple champion Keith Videlo messing up his attack from on high pin-end start and generally getting in a pickle, giving everyone else a bit of a booster and making early leader Fiona Goult's decade, never mind year.
But the star of the first half of the show was Rob Beere in his Laser. Claiming (blaming?) inspiration (or a rush of blood to the head) from reading the sailing secretary's race notice reminding everyone that his predecessor Tim Hemsley, RiP, once sailed all ten hours in his Phantom, Rob decided to see if he could replicate Tim's feat. Jumping in and out at every transition as the rules require, over the first 5 hours he built a five minute lead (even with the odd comfort-break thrown in) and without any of the Pieman's habitual rocking and rolling going on either. At that point, he decided to call it a day. Fair cop; there was far more wind than the occasion Tim went all the way and Rob was going to an open the following day.
This left the battle at the front to Keith's RS200 team and Paul Phillip's team in a Liberty (to make the changeovers fairer, Sailability use two boats, relay style). For most of the last 3 hours, the lead swapped each time one of them passed through the start-finish line to update their average lap time. Which reminds me; another visitor on the day was a further long-standing FSPC sailing secretary, Bob Castle, who wrote the brilliant software application used to manage the race and calculate actual and PY adjusted average lap times, time gap to the leaders and more. You get lots of anxious and interested visitors when you are race-controller on this one, thanks to Bob's programming.
At bang on 7pm, the final hooter went, boats finished the lap they were on and each received a spontaneous cheer and round of applause from the terrace as they crossed. It was rather magical, actually. What's not to like about three Cadet sailors weighing next to nothing hooning around the pond in a RS200, hiking like demons?
Those last mouse clicks, put the team of Keith, Bex and Charlotte Videlo (the latter having been hurried back from a 4.7 event at Lymington to helm the last stint), Katrina Gilbert and Jenny Rust onto the handicap-adjusted top of the podium, by a mere 7 seconds per lap.
Second was the team of Paul Phillips, Tessa Watkins, Mike Everett and Peter Etherton in a Liberty, a boat the latter two do not usually sail.
Third was the Laser Radial team of fleet captain Gavin MacLachlin, Kate Taylor and John Winchester who, with a late charge, were only one-second per lap behind Paul's team at the close.
Dare I mention it? The days "oops" prize went to Chris Ellis's Lark team, where Andy Shorrock continued his tradition of destroying Lark steering equipment, then not attaching the spare properly, so it later detached on Chris.
The day was rounded off with a great meal, to the accompaniment of some brilliant music from Dan Gordon and Scarlett Bingham and a resounding, enthusiastic cheer to the question "shall we do this again next year". That'll be a yes then.