The Mid-Thames Trophy is an inter club event, held at a different club each year, between Desborough SC, Laleham SC, Staines SC and Littleton SC. This year Aquarius SC was invited to join.
This was to have been held at Desborough SC but a week before it had to be switched to Littleton. Apparently Desborough's foreshore was under water and their Committee decided that it wasn't practical to host the event. Littleton then stepped in as their gravel pit was unaffected by rising water levels.
Three races were scheduled with the first three boats home in each race from each club to count. AQSC did excellent to enter eight boats:-
Keith Hatton and Mike Bake (SigneT)
Richard Cannon and Robert Britton (SigneT)
Graham Thompson (Bosun)
Roger Wheeler and Eric Bridgewater (Club Graduate )
Mark Hollamby (Club Laser)
Charles Dennis (Graduate)
Bryan Clements (Graduate)
Peter Sutton and Ian Powell (Graduate)
Littleton had 25 boats, Desborough had 7, Staines had 4 and Laleham had 3.
The conditions were superb with an 8-15 knt NE wind, fine and warm; the locals thought it very shifty but to us it was wonderfuly steady. There were a surprising number of capsizes.
We had a fair number of problems. Bryan's top rudder pintle pulled out. Charles Dennis's jib sheet frayed and jammed up. Rodger Wheeler had his tiller extension break and while recovering control of the boat rammed Keith Hatton and split his transom. Ian turned up at the wrong club and Robert directed him to Littleton using mobile phones while Ian was cycling, difficult as at that stage Ian didn't know where he was; arriving in time for the last race he had a very short sail because Peter's tiller extension broke as they started.
Although after all three races Littleton had swept all before them (well what do you expect with RS200's and Laser 2000's), against all the odds Aquarius SC came 2nd! (AQSC results 13kb)Well you could have knocked me down with a boat hook, I really didn't think we had a hope. I'm also glad to report that one or two people in our opponents teams also had to rapidly revised their opinions about SigneT's during the course of the day. Don't you just love it when that happens? Many thanks to Littleton for their hospitality; it was a great days sailing!
