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Category: iom

Forthcoming Events – Easter Weekend

This coming Easter Weekend sees the start of our IOM series on Saturday 31st March (10 days in series, 6 best to count). A reminder that this year this is an Open Series and members from other MYA Clubs are welcome to attend (£2 on the day). Racing starts at 13.00 prompt.

For those with RG65s and DF65s, our friends at Fleetwood have announced a pop-up Open Event on Easter Monday starting at 09.45 Full details are available on the Fleetwood Website

On The Road – Travelling Members

All winter series racing has now come to a close and spring is in the air!

Well it did not feel like spring for the last race of the DF65 winter series at West Lancs SC, Southport last Sunday. Very cold but as in the previous races well attended by Birkenhead Club members. The series started in early January with barmy light winds and sunshine and finished in March in sub zero conditions and winds that blew dogs of the quay side.

Club members who attended all or parts of the series were Alan Watkinson, Dave Williams, Andrew Peter, Dave Pickup, Roger Lincoln and John Brierley. All agreed an excellent series which ran on alternate weekends along with our IOM Winter series at Gautby Rd.

Overall John Brierley won the event and Alan Watkinson was 4th

Attention now turns to the IOM ranking event at Lincoln this weekend with a good turn out of club members already on the entry list.

John Brierley

IOM 2017/18 Winter Series #7 (10/03/18)

One Metres Birkenhead

A steady (ish) south-easterly breeze greeted 10 eager skippers for the final round of the famous Birkenhead IOM Winter Series. Several of the usual suspects were missing, no doubt saving Mothers day brownie points so they could attend the first Marblehead ranker at Watermead on Sunday.

In total 27 skippers have competed and running into the final day any of the top 6 could have won. That said, 2013 World Champion Rob Walsh from Fleetwood had won each of the days he sailed and although not leading going into the final race, due to not having a discard, a betting man would put his money on Rob winning with a perfect score of 400.

The first race was led by Paul Allen, with Rob and Martin Roberts scrapping for second and third. This set the tone for the day, with these three sharing most of the top 3 places in all 9 races with Rob claiming more first places.

After some post brew drizzle the breeze dropped and begun to shift to the forecasted southerly. With this come several general recalls as the course became biased on starboard tack.

After 9 races Rob Walsh won with 10 points, Paul Allen was second with 16 points and Martin Roberts third on 21 points.

  1. Rob Walsh 10 Pts
  2. Paul Allen 16
  3. Martin Roberts 21
  4. John Brierley 29
  5. Emilio Gonzalez 38
  6. Peter Baldwin 49
  7. Alan Watkinson 51
  8. Mike Parkington 54
  9. Sue Parkington 65
  10. Andrew Peter 70  (one 5th)
  11. Dave Williams 70 (No 5ths)
  12. Garry Box 74

10 races sailed.

 

Series Results

As some may have forecasted Rob Walsh won the 2017/18 IOM Winter Series scoring the perfect 400. Paul Allen was second scoring 375 and Graham Elliott was third scoring 366.

Full series results here

 

 

Last race of Winter Series – and start of New Season

This coming weekend sees the final race in our highly successful Winter IOM Series with the final result still very finely in the balance. 26 different competitors have taken part and any of the top 6 look to be possible winners.

On 17th March the main season starts with the first day of the DF65/RG65 series (See Calendar for full details). Sailing starts at 11.00 and last race will start before 16.45

A reminder that this is an Open Series, so competitors from other clubs are welcome (entry £2 on the day). Four days in total with the best 3 to count towards the final result.

RG65s and DF65s will race together over the same course, but the DF65s will be scored separately, so it doesn’t matter if you have the latest RG65 design or a MK1 Dragonforce, you can win!

IOM and M series races start on 31st March and 12th May respectively and again these will be Open races with the M Class sailing at West Kirby Marine Lake.

We are also delighted to be hosting the DF65 Northern District Championships on Saturday September 15th and holding an RG65 Traveller Series Open the following week.

IOM 2017/18 Winter Series #6 (24/02/18)

Well, Windguru told us 12knots from the SE and we got 12knots from the SE, beautiful blue skies but a bracing Siberian wind.

16 boats, 15 in second suit and Emilio in top suit. The early pace setters settled in very quickly with Rob winning 4 of the first 6 before tea break, Paul taking the other 2 races with Derek not far behind with a brace of seconds and a brace of thirds. Gary Benson also showing good form in races 1 and 5. Unfortunately Rob had to miss race 4 to take a trip to the corner shop for a pack of AAs for his TX, just shows, once again, 10 years at the top of the sport and even a World Champion can sometimes fail to prepare for Birkenhead.

After tea and the big question was, had Alan Watkinson taken a visit to the dodgy Russian doctor for something a little stronger than Tetleys with some great results especially in races 7 and 9. By race 7 the  guts had gone out of a few of the gusts which allowed Emilio to finally get his boat downwind without cartwheeling and somersaulting and get two race wins.

The day belonged to Rob though, with Paul, Derek and Martin closely following, 5th was a mile behind these top four. Final chapter to the book in two weeks, will Rob take the perfect 400 or will he crack under the pressure and let Paul, Graham or Martin through to take the chocolates?

Thanks go to Jack and Bernie, once again and also John for doning the waders once again.

  1. Rob Walsh 17 Pts
  2. Paul Allen 24
  3. Derek Priestley 27
  4. Martin Roberts 29
  5. Graham Elliott 51
  6. John Brierley 53
  7. Emilio Gonzalez 55
  8. Alan Watkinson 66 (One 2nd)
  9. Peter Baldwin 66 (No 2nds)
  10. Gary Benson 67
  11. Andrew Peter 85
  12. Mike Parkington 91
  13. Neil Westbrook 104
  14. Dave Williams 115
  15. Sue Parkington 117
  16. David Foster 123

11 races sailed.