Derbyshire Youth Sailing at Glossop Sailing Club
by Darren Clarke 21 Jun 2022 18:05 BST
28 May 2022
Patrick and Jonathan Hill win the Derbyshire Youth Sailing event at Glossop © Darren Clarke
Saturday 28th May saw Glossop Sailing Club host the fourth event of the 2022 Derbyshire Youth Sailing (DYS) series. Holding the event one the Bank Holiday weekend resulted in a smaller than usual fleet, and the Glossop wind gods - who can usually be relied upon to put up a blow for the DYS event and had been blowing hard enough to create a sea of white horses on the Friday evening - had seemingly also packed their bags and gone away for the day.
Nevertheless, 15 boats consisting of Laser Radials, ILCA4s, Toppers, a Graduate, a Byte and an Optimist competed.
The morning's race soon took on the form of a concertina. In the light winds, the boats slowly separated as they navigated the course, only to all group together at mark 6 in the lee of the hills. After a high-octane mass drift around the mark, the fleet then split as the boats caught the few puffs of wind on offer.
After lunch, the problematic mark 6 was brought deeper into the reservoir, but the wind decided to counter this by dropping off further. In spite of the diminishing wind, there was still tight competitive racing, with Patrick and Jonathan Hill in the Graduate coming home first for the second time that day.
A quick discussion and some even quicker manoeuvres by the RIBs saw the whole course up sticks and move to the eastern end of the reservoir in search of the wind. This paid off and the sailors were rewarded with a blow that was far more consistent, and was most appreciated by Oliver Morby in a Laser Radial, who significantly improved upon his day's racing and recorded his best result of the day.
The overall winners were the Hill brothers in the Graduate, although a special mention should go to Arlo Turner, who dusted the cobwebs off his Laser Radial and picked up a second overall with his very first outing of the year.
All in all, the sailors worked hard to sail in the most un-Glossop-like conditions imaginable. No doubt it'll be bang to rights next year and blowing the traditional hooley!
Results:
1st Senior and 1st Overall - Patrick and Jonathan Hill
2nd Senior and 2nd Overall - Arlo Turner
3rd Senior - Tanya Weighill
1st Intermediate and 3rd Overall - George Jacobs
2nd Intermediate - Merryn Attridge
3rd Intermediate - Amelia Gay
1st Junior - Fraser Smith