Guy Fawkes Pursuit Race at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club

 Leigh & Lowton SC restarted their annual Guy Fawkes Pursuit Race on Sunday 7th November, having had to cancel last year for Covid lockdown reasons. The forecast for the day was for a squally day with gusts of up to 30 knots - the reality did not disappoint. Many resisted the temptation to go afloat and of those that did, some were back ashore without troubling the start line, due to breakages or big swims!

The juniors were not deterred as they set off first, eight of them in Optimists, Teras and Toppers showing the adults the way to go. The start of the race was so gusty that the advantage the stronger winds should have brought was offset by having to manage their boats around the course.

The adults started with some Solos, then Streaker, Lasers, Albacore, Scorpion, GP14 and finally the Blaze and the asymmetric fleets.

In all the chaos that the wind brought for the first couple of laps, some struggled to find their way around the course and made some navigational errors. Then the wind abated and the race became a race at last, not survival.

The viewing spectators were debating who would win out - would it be Ben in his Optimist hanging on to his lead until he was overhauled on the last lap, or the battle between Steve and Paul in the Streaker/Radial combo who fought all the way round. It looked like it could have been Mark in the Blaze towards the end or Alastair and Helen in their RS200, but the clock ran out for them and they couldn't reign in Steve who held out to win by a minute or so.

Thanks to the usual OOD team of Howard Green & co for another great event.

Overall Results:

Pos Class Sail No Helm Crew R1

1 Streaker 1942 Steve Blackburn 1

2 Blaze 760 Mark Fearnley 2

3 RS 200 1509 Alistair Norris Helen Norris 3

4 Laser Radial 193713 Paul Heath 4

5 Wayfarer 10747 Louise Mckeand Nigel Hall 5

6 Optimist 5500 Ben Welfare 6

7 Laser Radial 73 Glyn Purnell 7

8 Solo 5909 Andy Fox 8

9 Topper 33701 Lewis Bacon 9

10 Albacore 8233 Mike Banner Mark Atherton 10

11 Solo 5272 Dave Kelsall 11

12 Topper 47026 Paul Roberts 12

13 Solo 5845 Stuart Van Den Hoek 13

14 Lark 2492 Paul Graham Ollie Thornton 14

15 Wayfarer 10700 Christopher Chadwick Michael Chadwick 15