British Miniyacht Championship Round 4 at St Anne's Landyacht Club

British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Anne's © Bob Singleton

St Anne's Landyacht Club hosted the fourth round of the British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Annes, with glorious sunshine and a strong 17-23 mph wind. 15 yachts entered from around the country.

The beach created some significant challenges, large areas of rippled sand as well as some 'moonscape' beach, slow rolling and undulating sand with peaks and troughs ranging from a couple of feet apart to a couple of meters, making for exhilarating sailing, plotting a route through without shaking ourselves too much was the goal.

British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Anne's - photo © Bob Singleton

Jake Cookson, the race director, had made the most of the beach, setting a small sausage course up along the pan (inshore part of dry beach) where some areas of soft sand needed to be navigated close to the turning marks, like bunkers on a golf course, adding an interesting degree of complexity. The beach on the outer banks was riddled with puddles, inlets and softer sand so the pilots were happy to be on the pan.

Races started with the 2-minute dial up before setting off at pace, on possibly the smoothest part of the beach. The short drag race to the first turning mark gave time to think about how to negotiate the first turn. The strong gusty winds and loose surface sand led to some interesting approaches to rounding the mark, a few people spinning out and having to chase the pack from the back. Sailing at speed was like rally driving on loose gravel, with some controlled skittering about, all pilots taking a few wobbles before getting tuned into the surface and wind.

British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Anne's - photo © Bob Singleton

The racing is held under strict permit requirements, agreed with Fylde Council. A sailing zone is marked with an outer and an inner boundary marked flags and patrolled by marshals and 4x4's from Community rescue. the course is laid 50-100m inside these boundaries. Strict racing rules mean that if anything enters this space then the race is red flagged and restarted once the course is clear.

Sunday saw reduced wind and the course was move away from some of the disturbed sand areas from Saturday. Four races were completed in a dying wind, when it eventually became too light to sail with sand conditions.

British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Anne's - photo © Bob Singleton

Races were time limited to 10 minutes and it was enough of a workout in Saturday's conditions. Each race saw a number of position changes throughout the fleet as people found their way around the obstacles, with the usual suspects Dave Green and Ed Ingles heading the fleet and Keith Ecroyd pushing through to win two of the eleven races. There were many close battles throughout.

The wind increased during Saturday, which saw some adding weight and others changing to smaller sails to maintain control in the testing conditions. A few yachts capsized, no injured but there were a couple of yacht breakages as yacht speeds reached 35 mph on the best reach.

British Miniyacht Championship at North Beach, Lytham St Anne's - photo © Bob Singleton

Many thanks to Community 4x4 Response for supporting our sailing at St Annes, without them we would not have the required presence to maintain the beach safety with other beach users, big thanks to the lap scorers Alison, Bozz, and Mags, and the race Director Jake Cookson.

The next regatta is 26th / 27th April at Elvington Field, York if you fancy coming along to spectate. No worries with the surface, it's concrete, just need to stay in the yacht.

Overall Results: