Tyne Bridge Series at Royal Northumberland Yacht Club

The happy winners of the Tyne Bridge Winter Series © Kelly Lilburn

The Tyne Bridge Winter Series was concluded on Sunday 26th March, most of the 21 yacht fleet turned out for what was to prove one of the most difficult and frustrating races of the series for many.

The wind was coming from a south westerly direction, around 10-15 knots, however as usual the Tyne's high banks and large buildings played their part. The tide started to ebb towards the latter part of the race, the heavy recent rain meant the strength of the tide was much stronger than normal, the wind was also very flukey towards the eastern mark. This caused so many problems for many having to tack into the 2.5 + knots of tide. One option was to creep along the North bank, the Sigma 8 "Buddy" seemed to be a master at this, however some went a little too close to the bank, keels bouncing off the bottom. Some yachts just couldn't make sufficient headway to reach the finish line and had to retire.

The most exciting race of the series was on 12th March, a cold blustery day. There were very severe squalls coming up the river from the south east, only around half the fleet dared to venture out. It was also snowing before and throughout the race, snow having to be cleared from decks. As the snow never let up though decks and cockpits were very slippy places to be.

A few yachts had reefs in before the start, these were quickly shaken out, however as the squalls were infrequent but quite worrying when they hit! Both divisions managed clean starts, the brave used spinnakers, the 1720 of team Trident managed to blow out their small spinaker and then proceeded to put the big one up! This brought lots of excitement and wet feet! The yachts electing not to fly kites faired quite well, as those with had more than a few problems.

The race officers decided to bring us all in a little early before there were any problems. Some of us were a little sad at this decision as we were having such fun! We have been awaiting some real wind for a long while.

The 1720 of Team Trident went on to win Div 1 and the H boat Eider, took Div 2 from the Mustang Addict by just 3 seconds, Addict took first in the previous race from Eider by just 16 seconds!

Looking back, the series has been a real success with only one race lost to lack of wind. Some real close racing, especially in the first 6 or so races as the wind was generally quite stable. One blizzard and one windy, snowy race.

The prizegiving took place in the Bascule pub at St. Peters after the last race, a fine buffet was put on, prizes were courtesy of The Bascule and St. Peters Marina.

Overall Results: