Mid Thames Trophy 2003

The Mid Thames Trophy is an inter club event between Aquarius, Desborough , Hampton, Littleton and Staines sailing clubs. This year it was a very easy trip for us as it was hosted by Hampton SC.

The weather forecast for the event was terrible with a good chance of rain and winds up to 30 knts; fortunately it remained dry and the SW wind was only up to 20knts; although very gusty and fluky we had a good sail.

Most of us decided to play safe and elected to be towed to Hampton by the safety boat. We took 6 boats but it was too windy to risk sailing single handed so only 5 boats raced.

With an entry of 21 plus some Hampton SC juniors having their own event it was crowded and very exiting sailing.

In the second race the goose neck came out of the boom of Richard Cannon’s Signet and fell on to the foredeck; Liz Archer did well to recover it when it was only 50mm from the edge.

Charles Dennis was using a Radial rig on his Laser for the first time to avoid capsizing but he still managed a capsize and in the last race he had a disaster when the mast broke. There were many capsizes throughout the fleets.

In each race the first 4 boats from each club counted towards the Trophy and there were individual prizes for the top helm. A Graduate from Littleton SC did very well to win the first two races, Richard won the last race and Rodger Wheeler also did very well. Again the host club won the Trophy and AQSC came 2nd (for the third time).

Many thanks to all our helm and crew for helping us get a good result and to Hampton SC for organising an excellent event and feeding us very well.