Aldeburgh Fleet Autumn Round Up

10 October 2009

The Aldeburgh Dragon fleet enjoyed a typical season in 2009. Competitive racing on short courses interspersed with the demands of small children and teenagers, cruising in the Adriatic, the Dragon national and international circuit, golf and , of course, the demands of 8-metre sailing. Rick Gillingham and Rory Bowman were under the thumb of their children, Balloo and Sarah very sensibly decided that their classic yacht in the Adriatic was magnetic, Mike Hayles and Patrick Gifford travelled around Europe, Jonathan Hunt captained his golf club and Peter Wilson and Tim Hannon sailed in If. In the end seven boats took part in the series. This may not sound like many but is a good result when realistically there are eight boats that could race in the fleet. 

The end result was that Basilisk, sailed by either Patrick or Mike won both the personal handicap and points series. It is, after all, a considerable advantage to have two helmsmen available and even two boats so that one is always there, eagerly awaiting crew on its mooring, like a faithful Labrador. The reason for success was the simple virtue of turning up and being the only boat not to need to count a DNC in her overall result . By the end of June Basilisk had won 5 races and finished second in one race in a 12 race series with 8 to count. This was to prove an insuperable advantage for Rory to cope with. Once the demands of young school age children had been dealt with he turned up and won 6 races on the trot but had to count two DNCs for the overall result. Rick Gillingham was in a similar position but with slightly worse results from the races sailed.

The position on handicap was different. Had Apache, the Tom Gibbon and Peter Cazalet combination, completed enough races she could easily have threatened Basilisk's dominance. The six races she sailed counted four wins and two seconds. Some of these were earned by Patrick Gifford's guest appearance as helmsman for a day, aided by the very keen Will Gibbon. Rory in contrast only won three of his six straight wins once the handicap results were calculated. There is a risk that the handicapper will penalise both Basilisk and Apache next year. Patrick has argued, successfully so far, that he and Mike are, on average, no better than Rick and that Basilisk is quite a lot older. This may not work much longer. In Apache's case, she has been very much refurbished and there has been a change of helmsman which the handicap hasn't quite caught up with.

In the other Aldeburgh racing, Rory won the Margaret Roney Cup for Dragons round Havergate Island when only Basilisk managed to stay close to him on a 7-mile long beat against the tide. However, Basilisk won the early season handicap series and the Iken race, a handicap round the withies at the upper end of the navigable river.

It continues to be great fun racing Dragons at Aldeburgh. The competition is close, entertaining and odd things happen to overturn safe positions and the social side, largely thanks to Rufus Gilday, is excellent. All we need is a few more boats. Anyone joining us can be sure of a great welcome, lots of accumulated Dragon knowledge and competitive Dragon racing in which you don't usually get wet!       

Patrick Gifford 

 

 

Fiona Brown
Press Officer
Fiona.Brown@fionabrown.com