After a sensational opening weekend, ASC have enjoyed another fantastic week of sailing out in the bay! Once again, we saw some great turnouts with a total of 17 entries for the midweek Commodore’s Cup Pursuit Race followed by 19 entries for the 2nd Weekend Series.
After a wet and windy Wednesday, the first-ever ASC pursuit race was pushed back to Friday where we were met with champagne sailing conditions. 17 boats set off in pursuit of Harry and Xavier in their Laser Pico in sunshine and a 11 knots. As the race got closer to the hour time limit, the fleet got closer and closer to the lead boats setting up an exciting finish.
With Nick and Lucy Heginbotham bearing down on them in their Merlin Rocket, leaders John and Alice Edwards managed to hold them off to take 1st place. Nick and Lucy took a close 2nd before Tony Sampson, racing his first ASC race in his Solo, managed to hold of Charles Downes and Charlie Ball for 3rd. The pursuit race was a great success and the change in format from fleet racing was welcomed by all. The next pursuit race will be raced on Wednesday as part of the Commodore’s Cup series.
The champagne sailing continued into the weekend with wall-to-wall sunshine both days. Yet again we were oversubscribed with keen sailors wanting to get out and race meaning some had to unfortunately miss out again. To avoid disappointment next week, please remember to sign up for this week’s racing which is now live on WebCollect.
After an initial postponement Saturday morning, the wind picked up to test the ‘upper limits’ of the risk assessment and provide some challenging conditions for our sailors. 13 brave starters set off for the first race which was won by Nick and Lucy in the Merlin, followed by Tony in the Solo and Charlie Whittaker and Lucy Gates in their RS200. Race 2 was convincingly won by Nick and Lucy followed by Charles Downes in his Laser in 2nd and Tony in 3rd.
Despite a sketchy looking forecast, we were greeted by a delightful 8-10 knots of breeze on Sunday afternoon and a perfectly set course. The results of race 3 and 4 were identical with Charlie and Lucy taking two commanding 1st place finishes followed by Nick and Lucy in 2nd and Charles in 3rd. This was enough for Charlie and Lucy to claim the overall 2nd Weekend Series win by the skin of their teeth on net 5 points, followed Nick and Lucy in 2nd who also finished on net 5 points with Charles in 3rd on net 6 points. This was a resounding win for Charlie who forgot to pack his spinnaker on his way to Abersoch despite insisting he put it in the boat. Congratulations to all!
A special mention to Ottie Pritchard who helmed her first races with Dad, James as crew. She sailed fantastically on Sunday and ended up sailing to a well-deserved 10th overall. Well done Ottie!
Special mentions should also go to Andy Teague who won the ‘I Beat My Son’ Trophy to add to the novelty armbands he collected last weekend (I think you might need a bigger trophy cabinet!), as well as son Ben who spectacularly missed the toe straps mid tack and went for a swim whilst battling with Charles much to the hilarity of PRO John Edwards!
Following the spectacular opening weekend, we are pleased that we had the same demand for racing this week. Perhaps more importantly, we were delighted to see beaming smiles on the faces of so many sailors, both young and old, who sailed with us this week. We hope you have had as much fun as we have watching!
As always, we would like to say a big thank you to Paul on the safety boat as well Andy, Sue, Jan and John who were all part of the race and beach team. We would also like to say an extra big thank you to Alice Edwards who was out snapping some fantastic shots of everyone on the water. She has taken some phenomenal photos out on the water this weekend and has captured smiles, sailing and plenty of (Ben and Andy) swimming. And finally, yet again thank you for all your fantastic support this week and we hope to see you next week for more action!
The ASC Team
(Jan, Ben, John, Joe, Andy, Georgia, Sue and Emma)
abersochsailingclub.org 