Comet open meeting at Crawley Mariners Yacht Club
by Donal Roche 17 Sep 19:33 BST
14 September 2024
Comet open meeting at Crawley Mariners YC © Celina Giersz
Seven visitors travelled some considerable distances to Hedgecourt Lake for the Crawley Mariners YC Comet open meeting on Saturday 14th September. They were joined by four home boats for the racing. The early morning was sunny but windless. Fortunately and much to the RO's relief a moderate if gusty westerly wind settled in about eleven.
Eddie Pope, Ogston SC took the lead early on in race 1 followed by Jeff Smith, CMYC. Eddie held this position through to finish first.
Race 2 followed a similar pattern for first and second with Annette Walter, Welwyn Garden City SC working her way up into third place.
Fortified by a hot lunch the fleet took to the water to resume combat.
In race 3 the order after rounding the two windward marks on lap one was Chris Robinson, Burghfield SC, from Eddie. At the gybe mark Eddie seized his opportunity, gybed inside to retake the lead position. Further back in the fleet there was lots of place changing augmented by the gusty conditions. After a poor start Jeff Smith worked his way up through the fleet to second place by lap three.
On the final leg Eddie opted to go right, Jeff and Chris went left. Jeff just managed to complete his tack back onto starboard finishing half a boat length ahead of Eddie. Chris was third followed by Annette sailing with her three year old daughter aboard.
In Race 4 Chris Robinson took an early lead and made no mistakes to secure a first place finish followed by Jeff and Eddie.
The day had some very exciting, close quarters racing and demonstrated how well suited the Comet is to small lake sailing.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Sail No | Name | Club | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Points |
|---|
| 1 | 377 | Eddie Pope | Ogston | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 2 | 872 | Jeff Smith | CMYC | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 3 | 867 | Chris Robinson | Burghfield | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| 4 | 323 | Annette Walter | WGCSC | 3 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 12 |
| 5 | 532 | John Copenhall | Hunts | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 16 |
| 6 | 809 | Simon Thompson | CMYC | 4 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 16 |
| 7 | 903 | Simon Pratt | Chipstead | 10 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 18 |
| 8 | 868 | Helen Evans | Silver Wing | 6 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 21 |
| 9 | 174 | Meg Warren | Chipstead | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 23 |
| 10 | 518 | Michael Thompson | CMYC | 8 | RTD | 9 | 8 | 25 |
| 11 | 516 | Ian Burroughs | CMYC | 11 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 32 |