Burton Blizzard 2025
by Adam Kenney 12 Feb 17:04 GMT
8-9 February 2025
One of the worst things about winter sailing events is the fact that they are sailing events held in the winter. Therefore, they're always cold, often wet, and sometimes quite miserable.
Nevertheless, despite this, they do always seem to coax the keen onto the water in relatively large numbers.
This weekend, 24 boats decorated Burton Sailing Club's slipway for the annual Burton Blizzard - round two of the Midlands mini-series. A series hosted by Notts County SC, Burton SC, Staunton Harold SC, and Ogston SC. Entry being free for members of those aforementioned clubs.
Fortunately for everyone involved, the forecasted snow held off. And Burton SC's now legendary hospitality ensured plenty of hot drinks and hot food. So, spirits were high in the clubhouse as competitors readied themselves by consuming much processed pork, coffee, and tea.
After a brief competitor briefing, Saturday morning's pursuit race started with the first boats starting 10 minutes into the race's 80-minute countdown. The last boat to start, Kev Hope and Andy Stewart in a Fireball, began their chase 15 minutes later.
Ogston's Christine Fowler kept herself and her Comet in the lead for an impressively long time. Only to be overhauled by club-mates Russell/James Short in an Enterprise and Luke Wilshire in a Laser.
Russ and James managed to extend and retain a sizeable gap between themselves and the hybrid Flying Fifteen team Tim Bird/Sam Jones, from Burton SC/Staunton Harold SC. Russ/James took a well deserved first place, followed by Tim/Sam in the Fifteen, and Luke's Laser slipped into third.
After a well-deserved Lunch of pasta and meatballs, fish finger sandwiches, toasties, pasties, cakes, biscuits, tea, and coffee, the fleet headed back out for two afternoon handicap races.
It was still cold.
Race two was very long. Over an hour in fact. However, this is just a testament to the exceptional value for money you get at Burton SC, and nothing at all to do with distracted race management.
Burton's very own Duncan Adams took top spot in a Phantom. Kev and Andy's Fireball slipped into silver position; and Russ/James Short took another podium spot by stealing third place away from Burton's Chris Swallow in a K1.
Race three started with two Phantoms over the line. Well, when I say over the line, they were practically halfway up the beat. Apparently, they had been so engrossed in each other's company that they had missed the fact that the sequence was under way/completed.
This was nothing an individual recall flag and a bit of a panicky sail back couldn't sort out, however. One of them even managed to be third round the windward mark, so it wasn't a complete disaster!
Ogston's Russ/James Short won the race, meaning they'd bagged three results in the chocolates in one day. Staunton's Nigel Pepperdine took advantage of the reach-heavy course to bag second place; and third was pinched by Burton's very own Chris Swallow in his K1.
Day One's results left Russ/James as overnight leaders on an excellent tally of 5 points, ahead of Chris Swallow's K1 who laid second overnight with 14 points.
All was to play for, and I'm sure all competitors had a very sensible early night as such. Except Sarah Fairclough, obviously, who was mysteriously missing from her Albacore the next day.
Sunday broke with basically the same easterly wind direction - there was just more of it. So, a day even more exciting than the last laid before the Blizzard's competitors.
It was still Baltic though, which took the edge off.
Two back-to-back races were scheduled to start at the unnecessary early time of 10.30am. And after a hearty breakfast, and some bleary-eyed bleating about the previous day's antics, the racing got under way bang-on-time.
The increased breeze benefited Kev and Andy in the Fireball, who took to the as-olympic-a-course-as-you're-gonna-get-round-the-cans-in-the-midlands with great aplomb by taking race four's bullet. They were followed by Staunton's Pete Gray in a Streaker, and Notts County's Chris/Josh in a Scorpion.
Seeing no point in changing the course, the race officer (who was shouted at considerably less than in previous years) got race 5 under way almost as soon as the last boat had finished race four. This was because, as previously mentioned, it was freezing.
This time, however, it was a Phantom's time to shine. BSC's Carl Gibbon, taking a break from his day-job crewing a 505, sailed a blinder to take first place. Pete Gray took second place once again in his Streaker, and Tim/Sam snuck into third place in what was at times literally a Flying Fifteen!
The final results, after one discard, left Russ/James winners, Kev/Andy in second place, and Duncan Adams third overall. First lady was Christine Fowler. This was apparently Christine's first win of anything on her travels, so we're very proud of her for that! Congratulations to all the winners.
Annoyingly, absolutely no-one remembered to take any photos of the racing. So that's good. However, we did remember to get some pictures of the winners on our notoriously healthy and safe toadstool podium.
And so that was that. The Burton Blizzard over for another year.
Thankyou to everyone who helped organise, and well done to everyone who competed across the weekend.
The next Midland mini-series event is the Staunton Blaster on Feb 22/23rd and then it's on to Ogston on March 1/2nd. So, we're only halfway there. Livin' on a prayer.