Leigh & Lowton Junior Winter Regatta 2020

Leigh & Lowton Junior Winter Regatta © Gerard van den Hoek

The ever-popular Junior Winter Regatta at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club drew in 40 entries from right across the North of England & Wales for a fabulous day of junior racing on January 11th 2020.

A few had been put off by forecasts of up to 37 knots, but the local team were confident that conditions would be sailable with the wind from a more sheltered Southerly direction. In the event, the wind rarely got above 15 knots and went down as low as 6 knots in the last race!

The race team lead by Tash de la Fuente and Richard Catchpole went for 2 races back-to-back in the morning to take advantage of the favourable conditions. The competitors were well-behaved on the start line with the only blemish in the day being individual recalls on the last Oppie start when battling for the pin end.

In the first race, a left shift gave the start line some significant port bias, but all the fleets got away well and sailed around a figure-of-eight course. Henry Bayliss (Rudyard Lake) and Noe Peckham (LLSC) ended joint first in the mixed handicap fleet closely followed by a strong set of Tera sailors led by Ffion (Port Dinormic). Archie Burton (Beaver) set out the way he intended the day to go with a 1st place in the Topper fleet, followed by Henry Smith (West Riding) and Mary-Anne Beacock (Conniston). In the Optimists the tone for the day was set by Ben Welfare (LLSC) winning the first race battling with rival Chris Hampshire (Ripon). Leon Kadioglu (West Kirby) and Oscar Sandon (LLSC) finished well with 3rd and 4th.

The race team had to reset windward marks for both the second and third races as the wind continued to oscillate during the day. Henry asserted his dominance in races 2 & 3 to take the handicap crown, pushed hard again by Noe and Ffion. Jac Bailey (Port Dinorwic) had a great second race to record a 2nd place, bring him up to 4th in the overall standings. Archie and Henry continued their 1,2 positions in the next 2 races to end up in that order overall in the Topper fleet, although Archie had to work a lot harder in the last race. Mary-Anne held on to her 3rd place overall, despite a late surge from Grace Culling (Coniston), getting a 3rd place in the last race to finish one point behind. In the Optimists, racing got tighter and tighter all day with race 3 very close all the way, but Ben held off the challenge from Chris.

All in all, a great day on the water and good reason not to believe the forecasters too much!! The regatta fleet got out on the water too in dinghies and ribs to have a great day out.

Thanks to all those children and parents who travelled to Leigh & Lowton to make this such a great event, plus all those on rescue duty at the club, there were a few spillages during the day to be attended but not many!

Overall Results:

Handicap
1st Henry Baylis (Rudyard)
2nd Noe Peckham (LLSC)
3rd Jacob Knock (Port Dinorwic)

Teras
1st Ffion Bailey (Port Dinorwic)
2nd Jac Bailey (Port Dinorwic)
3rd Max Rawlinson (Roa Island)

Toppers
1st Archie Burton (Beaver)
2nd Henry Smith (West Riding)
3rd Mary-Anne Beacock (Coniston)

Optimists
1st Ben Welfare (LLSC)
2nd Christopher Hampshire (Ripon)
3rd Leon Kadioglu (West Kirby)

Full results available here.