Sailing Secretary Report

The sailing conditions for the season up to 20 June was generally very poor but fortunately it has been much better since then. Most weeks there has been good sailing at Aquarius and on visits to other clubs.

On 10 October there was particularly rough sailing with a NE 4-5 wind. Although there were only 3 boats out there were over 30 capsizes. Graham Thompson reefed his Bosun, had Bryan Clements as crew, and still capsized; for once Bryan got wet. Charles Dennis had 20 capsizes in his Laser.

Support for the Wednesday afternoon series rather petered as the season progressed and it is a pity that support for sailing events has not been as good as for the social events.

Aquarius has had very successful sailing at other clubs. The highlight was winning the Mid Thames Trophy sailed at Staines Sailing Club with Aquarius winning all three races with 2nd and 3rd place in the first race and 2nd in the last race. It was very windy and gusty.

At the August visit to Bewl Richard Cannon with Liz Archer crewing came 3rd in the short course racing and won the Ton Up cup for the leading boat with helm and crew ages totaling 100 or over.

There were Signet open meetings at Paxton Lakes, Grafham Water, Littleton and Ferry Meadows and the Signet Nationals at Chichester. Richard Cannon, Mike Baker, Keith Hatton, Michael Stevens and Robert Briton supported these events with excellent results. All the meetings other than Paxton , the first one, had excellent sailing conditions.

Richard won the first 7 races for the Signet Senior Points Trophy so let Michael helm his Signet ST368 for the last two Open meetings, Robert Britton crewed for him in the last meeting. Michael did excellently to win the Novice Points Trophy; this is the first time that both the Senior and Novice Trophies have been won by the same boat in the same year. Richard won the Signet Nationals, with Robert Britton crewing, although before the last race there was a tie with Roy Melsom; both having come 1st and 2nd in 2 races each. In the last deciding race Richard was 2nd and Roy 3rd.

The Aquarius Spring and Summer series have been completed; Graham Thompson won the Spring series both on Boat and Personal Handicap and Charles Dennis won the Summer series both on Boat and Personal Handicap.