Recent Successes
Racing
Home Events
2008 Solo Open
Meeting
A good fleet of 32 Solos turned up for the meeting and were
met with a good range of conditions during the day. The results were
close, with Stephen Graham (Burwain SC) first and local sailor, Steve Denison, finished second.
Full report & results
2008 GP14 Open
Meeting
As for most of
the Spring, a cold north easterly breeze was the order of the day. Club
sailor Matt Mee, having just returned from winning the Fireball World
Championships out in Asia, showed that he still knew the way around his local
lake and won the event. Well established GP sailors, Neil Marsden and Neil
Platt took the runner up spots.
Full
report & results
2008 Mirror Inland Championships - 13th-14th September
The club's reputation for running well organised events has
once again resulted in it being asked to run a major event. This time it is the
Inland Championships for the Mirror Class Dinghy. This is always a good
event for both adults and juniors, with the juniors trying to impress training
squad organisers.
More details coming up soon.
Event
Page on Mirror Class Web Site
2008 Merlin Rocket Felucca Trophy - 4th-5th October
This year's event has moved back to its normal dates of the first
weekend in October to the last weekend. Saturday night sees the annual Merlin Rocket
Felucca Dinner. Start training now.
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Away Events |
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Merlin Rockets |
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Winder finally trumps Whitworth.
After many years of trying David Winder, crewed by Pippa
Taylor, finally managed to take first spot at the Bolton Open Meeting in
front of Richard Whitworth and Sally Townend.
On the following day, Winder/Taylor won again at
Blackpool and Fleetwood, with Whitworth/Townend in second place.
Earlier in the year, Richard had travelled down south to
win the Open on the River Hamble. |
Merlins should be sailed flat, David &
Pippa
Except when roll-tacking, Richard and Sally |
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Salcombe Week.
The big "holiday?" week for the Merlin Rockets
has once again seen many HLSC successes in one of the windiest weeks of
this year. David Winder with Pippa
Tayor were 5th, out of 90 boats. Having celebrated his crew's 18th
birthday in style, Nick Heginbotham and Matt Calvert came 9th. Top
spots were taken by Hollingworth Lake crews, with Elena Bremer flying the
mantle for the girls by crewing the leading boat for Andy Davies and Chris
Robinson finishing 3rd with William Warren. |
Crowded conditions at Salcombe
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National Championships
76 boats made the visit to Looe for the annual Merlin
thrash, with all the wind that was not at the Olympics turning up at Looe.
The strong winds and big winds gave exciting and tiring sailing and the
competition was as hot as ever. Richard Whitworth and Sally Townend
took 3rd place after winning a couple of races. Sally won the Minima
Trophy as first lady crew, just beating another HLSC girl, Elena Bremer,
who finished 4th, whilst the leading HLSC male crew was Chris Robinson in
7th place.
Julian Parry and Holly Scott finished 22nd, just beating
David Winder and Pippa Taylor in 23rd place who had one of those
weeks, when things just did not seem to go their way. Matt Calvert
crewed into 21st place. Matthew Winder and Kelly Miller came 46th.
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Superb
Action Shots of Merlin Rockets at Salcombe and Looe. |
Fireballs
Taking a break from sailing at the lake, Matt
Mee and Richard Wagstaff, from Hollingworth Lake Sailing Club, took the Fireball
World Championships at Royal Varuna Yacht Club at Pattaya in Thailand.
Mee
and Wagstaff started the week with a win, and added another three wins as the
week progressed, so that by the last day, Mee and Wagstaff had carved out a four
point lead over their closest rivals, Nathan Stockley and Sam Muirhead from
Australia and were twelve points ahead of fellow Brits David Wade and Ben
McGrane. Covering their nearest rivals in the races on the last day was sufficient to give
them a convincing
win.
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GP14
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World Championships at Abersoch
106 GPs from as far away as South Africa and Ceylon descended
on Abersoch. In the variable conditions, the experience of the old hands
in the GP fleet told. North West sailors Ian Dobson and Neil Marsden took
1st and 2nd places. Neil had just won the UK Sailing Coach of the
Year prize and the result showed he can still sail well.
Matt Mee from HLSC and Sam Brearey finished in 6th place. Adam
McGovern (our local On-board Manager) and Chris Robinson (yep, the same one in
the Merlins) finished in 14th place.
Martin Brennan and Alistair Knott finished in 30th place.
Having not competed in National Championships for decades, Mike
Butler and Steve Caladine were placed in the bronze fleet, but they demonstrated
their class, finishing 1st in this fleet and 46th overall. Graham Knox and
Steve Heywood (flown in from Australia for the event) finished 50th, so all the
HLSC boats were in the top half of the fleet.
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Solos
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Steve Denison |
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Major Events
in the Past Year
24 hour race
at West Lancs 2007
A brilliant
race by Adam McGovern and Chris Robinson, who sailed the whole race on their
own, led for most of it and ended up second. They did it for
"Sail for Cancer" and have raised around over £2000. The main
team ended up 15th.
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Merlin Rocket 2007
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Richard Whitworth &
Nicola Brook won the National Silver Tiller, having gained 1sts at Hamble, Banbury, Lowestoft and winning the re-arranged Inland
Championships at Blithfield. David Winder with Pippa Tayor
tried hard to match them with wins at Cookham Reach, Pwllheli
and Whitstable. |
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