Our Richard Does It Again - Stuart
Schafer
A trip to the Hampton Sailing Club
Regatta, weekend 25-26 June, proved to be a great success for
Richard Cannon. Richard was in sparkling form and
in five exciting races over the two days in which
an average of 40 boats per race took part, 13 in the handicap
class alone, Richard scored three wins one second and one
fourth to win first prize in the handicap class.
This was no mean feat when you consider
that in the last race on Sunday Richard got off to a dreadful
start where a gap failed to open, Richard found himself over
the start line and then touched another dinghy, and had to go
back to restart and he had to also do a two turn penalty. Did
this deter our Richard ? "did it ****", he just doggedly got
stuck in and went on to win the race. To coin an old
phrase, "when the going gets tough the tough get going".
Well done Richard. Also thanks to Charles
Dennis for putting in an appearance and competing in two
races on Sunday. Also thanks to Keith Poncia and his wife for
turning up to give support.
Richard was crewed in the two races on Saturday
by Liz Archer and in Sundays three races by Brian Clements
and would liked to extend his profound thanks to both of them
for their invaluable support in making the win possible.
It really could not have been a better weekend
weather wise, Saturday was a bit overcast, Sunday started the
same but later the sun came out to make it a really terrific
weekend.
The wind was about 5-10 knots straight up the
reach, although it was a bit patchy at times it made for some
great sailing and kept the spectators such as myself well
entertained.
The Hampton Club are to be congratulated for
putting on such a great regatta. The sight of forty dinghies,
Merlins, Enterprises, Comets, GP 14s, Toppers, Lasers, and
even a lone Kinsman was a truly magnificent sight. Needless
to say a few cruiser drivers had to change trousers after
navigating through this lot.
A big thank you to all at Hampton for their
hospitality their friendliness and some great food and
of course a terrific spectacle, thank you all very very much.
