Sunday 11th August saw the first-ever ASC long-distance race taking place. Despite a difficult Westerly offshore breeze, OOD Andy Teague set an exciting course spanning from the Islands to Llanbedrog head, incorporating plenty of exciting reaches much to the excitement of the 10 starters.
The race started in an unconventional manner with a Le Man-style start. All competitors had their boats in the water ready to go and with one big blast of the hooter, they were away! The lighter, shifty conditions close to the beach meant there was plenty of separation between the fleet by the first mark. Ian Middleton sailing a D-Zero and Charlie Ball in his Laser got away quick and established themselves a solid lead. They battled around the bay, however, Charlie came out on top by 42 seconds with Ian finishing in second place. However, the performance of the day has to go to Tom and Nat Pritchard-Jones in their RS Feva XL. In their first-ever ASC race (which also happened to be the first time, they had ever sailed together!), they took a fantastic third place!
The race also saw a hotly competitive battle between 3 RS200s which ended with all 3 boats finishing within 49 seconds of each other. John and Alice Edwards finished in 4th as the first RS200 whilst an incredible last beat saw Ben Teague and Ottie Pritchard (who was sailing an RS200 and an asymmetric boat for the first time) hunt down Mike Casey and Mark Lind, beating them by 7 seconds.
After the disappointment of last year with the race getting blown off, the first instalment of the ASC Long-Distance Race was one to be remembered and was enjoyed by all. Bring on next year!
Result can be found below:
abersochsailingclub.org 