Chew Sailors on their Travels Below are some reports from club members on their travels this year. We have 2 National champions in Andy Hewitt (Blaze) and Tim Johnson (RS 700) and one World Championship race winner in Derian and Andy Scott (Fireball). Ben McGrane was winning crew at the Int 14 Nationals , including winning the prestigious Prince of Wales Cup with Roger Gilbert. Richard Cumpsty is making good progress in the Laser fleet with an 7th at the Laser Radial nationals whilst Peter Sherwin is the Laser Grandmaster National Champion. I will leave it up to you to ask him how old he is !!! In no particular order the reports are below with a big thank you to Andy Jones for providing the in depth Topper report. Apologies if I have left anyone or any events out. If you want to e-mail me text and pictures I will update the article. Ralph Singleton [email protected] Laser 4000s Jan Frayne and Gus Cameron took their Laser 4000 to their first European Championships held this year in Bandol near Marseilles. Although never competing for the top places they learned a lot and had a fantastic time mixing it with the friendliest fleet in existence in the Force five winds and 30 C temperatures. Gus and Jan also went to the 2009 Nationals in Beer but forgot everything they learned at the Euros and spent most of the time upside down in the Force six winds. Must have been something to do with the reduced temperature. Also in the Laser 4000 class James and Erica Bradbury finished 3rd at the recent Hayling Open , including a race win and beating some long time 4000 experts. This topped Caddy’s 4 th place in the FFs at the same event !! Cherubs The UK Cherub class headed down to Babbacombe Corinthian Sailing Club in sunny Devon for their Nationals. Racing was scheduled from Wednesday 12th to Saturday 15 th September but a large proportion of the fleet decided to head down early and test the water before the championships began. Monday and Tuesday were sunny and winds were light which allowed for plenty of bimbling, tanning and ice cream eating for the early arrivers. In a week of lightish wind (12kts) except for the 20kts on the last day Paul Croote and Chris Crabb sailed very consistently recording 7 3rds and 5 4ths in the 14 race series. 1st Overall – Peter Barton and Roz Allen – Ronin – 11 points. 2nd Overall – William and Lucy Lee – The Antidote to Panel Games – 21 Points. 3rd Overall – Paul Croote and Chris Crabb – Atum Bom – 38 Points. Phoenix (for the best restoration) – Paul Croote – Atum Bom Paul went on to confirm this speed by winning the Anniversary trophy at Chew with Ed Higham beating both Caddy in his FF (2 nd ) and Ralph and Derian in the RS 800 (3 rd ) Flying Fifteens The Fyling Fifteens have been active with the help of some new boats owned by Caddy and Sweetie and the Doug and Gail. Caddy was 6th at the Northampton Open early in the season with some very stiff competition and won Falmouth Week overall having won 4 of the races. Doug and Gail Pattison won one race at Falmouth but because of consistently high finishes won the "Ironman" prize for the series without discard. Keith Harris won one of the races at Falmouth and came 40th at the Nationals (with Catherine crewing for him). Ben McGrane sailing Terry and Debbie’s boat under the Chew burgee was second at Northampton and 6th at the Nationals having won one of the races. Watch out next year as he makes another attempt to win the champs. Mike Thompson and Simon Millington had two top ten results in races at each of the Northern and Southern Championships and 23rd at the Nationals. They also won a race at Falmouth. Caddy rounded the season off with a 4 th at Hayling with Dave Sweet beating at least two ex World Champions on the way. ISO Mike and Josh Praeter went to the Iso Europans in Stralsund, Germany and finished 4 th . This event included a local 20 mile long distance race to an island and back. Here they finished 3rd out of 30 including beating the eventual European Champion. Another remarkable performance from Mike who sails with only one leg and one arm. Phantoms In the Phantom fleet recent new member Simon Hawkes has had a consistent year winning the open at Bowmoor, 2 nd at Sutton Bingham, 3 rd at the Winters, 4th at Chase, 5 th at the inlands and 7 th at the Nationals at Llandudno. Simon Chapman has a new boat on order so it will be interesting to see the two of them competing at Chew over the winter. Simon Hawkes will be one to watch. Blaze The picture on the right is Andy Hewitt on his way to winning the 2009 Blaze National Championships at Pembrokeshire S C which is even further west in Wales than Tenby. Well done Andy on a great performance in some very tricky conditions. Andy has had a great year also winning opens at Bala and Warsash during the year. This came after a strong 4th in the Chew A Handicap Wednesday Evening series !! where his position was perhaps affected by only just making the 10 race qualification limit. Could he be a hot favourite for next year’s series !!. Laser The most travelled Chew sailor this year must go to Richard Cumpsty who went to Japan for the Laser Radial Youth World Championships finishing 9 th in the Silver fleet. Richard continues to make good progress throughout the year with improving performances in the Laser Radial Qualifier series, a second to Duncan Whitrow at our own open and perhaps the best performance was an 8th at the Laser Radial Nationals at Paignton out of a fleet of 96. Richard will be one to watch in future. Evergreen Peter Sherwin also put in some great performances this year . In July he came 11 th in the Laser Masters national championships at Pevensey Bay and was crowned Grandmaster National Champion . Then just to prove you can still improve at any age he finished 3 rd at the first Laser World Masters 2010 qualifier event at Sidmouth and again was leading Grand Master beating some Laser legends such as Colin Smith (ex Chew) and Tim Law amongst others. Well done Peter we will await the report from next year’s worlds. Still Neil Hopton , Duncan Whitrow and Julian Cooke the first 3 in the Wednesday Evening series (Peter was 4 th !!) claim that this series is the Un -official world Series and look forward to putting Richard and Peter in their place again next year!! Toppers First up over the summer was a trek to Derwent reservoir (near Newcastle) for the national series event attended by over 200 competitors. Chew was represented by Ellie Cumpsty and Ed Jones, who warmed up for the year and hinted at successes to come with 55th and 25 th overall respectively. After a short break, the next major event was the national series traveller at Poole, which again attracted an entry of over 200 boats. The Chew contingent comprised Ed, Ellie, and Tom Hole. After two days racing in moderate winds final positions were 160th for Tom, 65 th Ellie and 19 th Ed. It was then onto the World Championships, held in Ebensee, Austria at the end of July. Ellie Cumpsty got there the traditional way, trekking through Europe en famille in their camper van, arriving just after a huge Thunderstorm which deposited 2m of snow on the local mountains and bought gale force winds blasting down Trebensee lake. Meanwhile, Kate Andy Olivia, Edward and Tom Hole travelled in rather more leisurely style by train, while Ed and Tom’s boats were trailed across Europe by Tom’s Grandfather. Despite the different routes, the Chew team, boats and support all arrived safely and quickly found the best spots on site/in the bar! The fleet of 100 comprised entries form Italy, Japan, Germany, Austria, Ireland and GBR. It had been planned to complete a qualification series to split the entries into Gold and Silver fleets for the remainder of the Championship, but weak race management and poor communication resulted in a shambolic first days racing. With the Championship blog dominating the sailing news headlines and a raft of protests outstanding at the end of the qualification series, the decision was taken for racing to continue in a single fleet. Adding further challenge was the introduction of a 6am launch time to catch the early morning wind, and with 4 races scheduled each day and a windless “dead spot” normally around midday, competitors were often not off the water until 5pm – this was truly a marathon sailing event. Things proceeded relatively smoothly after the early problems and after a nail biting climax to the 15 race series, the Chew Toppers all acquitted themselves fantastically well, with Tom Hole coming in 67th, Ellie Cumpsty 19 th and Edward Jones 9 th . Flush from their success at the Worlds, the team had a few days break and then moved onto the national Championship at Pwhelli, where there was a record entry of 340 boats. Again Chew were represented by Tom, Ed and Ellie in the main fleet, and it was fantastic to see a large entry of Chew Toppers in the regatta fleet making our representation probably the largest from a single club (see separate report for regatta fleet details).