Southern Travellers 2009
By Secretary. Filed in Race reports |
The former South eastern Travellers Series re-created this year. The original series was instigated by Brian Turner of Broxbourne SC, and was very helpful in setting up the 2009 programme. In all 6 clubs agreed to incorporate their existing inland Open Meetings into the series. The aim is to encourage club sailors, who tend to sail their own Open only, to feel welcomed and encouraged to travel to other similar local events. To aid this attractiveness, none of the 15 Worlds qualified Open sailors are eligible for the Open section. 2009 was set up as a re-establishing year, and started at Datchet and Bewl in March, then Llangorse in May, Cardiff (Classic and Silvers only) in June, Broxbourne in July and the final event in September at South Cerney.
The Open section was very well attended at Datchet with 16 qualified, and Bewl with 18, but proved to be a false dawn, with only 4 at Llangorse, 2 at Broxbourne and 1 at South Cerney. Ultimately only two raced at both of the first two, but no-one raced at three – the stipulation of the series was that you count your best three results, but have to attend 2 to qualify. Chris Swallow and Matt Pallet, and Mike Kilbee and Patrick Keats who were second. Well done to series leader
The Silver section came down to a duel between two Datchet boats, Mike Firth and Phil Tinsley in 3385 won the last event at South Cerney to clinch the series, with Andy Clark and Nadia Melinkova in 3378 second overall. Two South Cerney boats raced two events, Andrew McArthur and Roderick Aitken in 3330 and Alex and Mike Tatlow in 3288.
The Classic section was the best attended overall, and it came down to the final event. John Craddock and Paul Kendal from Llangorse had a purple day at South Cerney, scoring 2,1,1,1,2 to win, beating Bob Tait and Peter Comber from Broxbourne into second place. They ended up level on points, with the South Cerney result separating them. The only other crew with 3 results were Tony Oatley and Tim Greaves from South Cerney. 6 boats recorded 2 results each. Well done all.
Plans for 2010
This year, we based the Series on the existing opens provided by the 6 clubs. Datchet and Bewl were in March – too early and too close together – we need one a month. We await the date for the Bewl open next year and then we can hold one at Datchet in an empty month to provide a better balance.
We will also promulgate earlier and more widely – in the BIFFA website if it is fully operating and via Yahoo Groups as well as via Fleet Captains. As soon as we have the dates for next year