Streaker Open at Hykeham Sailing Club

Hykeham Streaker Open © Andy Ritchie

Hykeham Streaker Open © Andy Ritchie

Hykeham Streaker Open © Andy Ritchie

On the 19th June 2021, Hykeham Sailing Club opened its gates to welcome visitors for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

Like a scene from Frozen, local sailors looked around in awe as 16 visitors flooded through the gate to race, joining the 6 home boats.

The Race Officer for the day was Andy Ritchie, visibly showing signs of confusion as to why they all had the same logo on their sails, and why he wouldn't be needing to record times and work out PY's.

Everyone was greeted by a wind that didn't quite know where it fitted into today's modern society, changing its mind on how strong it wanted to be and which direction it felt like coming in from.

A course was laid that would allow plenty of movement between Leeward and Windward marks to account for the shifts in the wind, using a P-shaped course to give a long upwind and good runs downwind to keep the fleet together, which resulted in close racing throughout the fleet in all races.

The first race kicked off in a light 3-5mph wind and swung on the start line putting a lot of starboard bias on the pin end. The race officers daughter Imogen and dog Gary were on call to bark out any boats over the line, and a Recall was nearly used if offending boats hadn't already made efforts to go back and re cross.

The first beat spread the fleet in different directions and at the windward mark Nigel Pepperdine (Staunton Harold) led followed closely by David Smith (Welton) The downwind legs bunched the packs up and there were lots of place changes and carnage by the time the fleet started lap 2.

Local sailor Nick Welbourn took the lead, only to then be swamped going downwind and passed by Pepperdine, Smith and the late starting Peter Gray (Staunton) A huge shift briefly allowed Smith into the lead but Pepperdine showed great speed to retake the lead by the finish, closely followed by Smith and Gray, first local boat was Neil Dyer in 4th.

Race 2 kicked off in a building easterly wind, a recall and postponement followed to allow the line to be reset and the fleet got away.

Gray led from start to finish, able to watch a great battle behind for the remaining podium spots, Steve Sallis (Hykeham) took 2nd, Pepperdine 3rd and the 'old boy' Barrie Watson (Hykeham) showing he still has speed with 4th.

Hykeham Streaker Open - photo © Andy Ritchie

Race 3 was held straight away, and Smith was found to be like an excited teenager starting off before the gun.

Andy Bayliss (Hykeham) showed the fleet a clean pair of heals for the first couple of laps with Smith Jr, Giles Therkelson-Smith showing some great speed at the front of the fleet.

With positions changing throughout, Gray was showing brilliant downwind speed to catch up to the back of Bayliss, and start putting pressure on the final upwind leg.

Taking the lead in the last 100m of the beat Gray held on downwind to win the race, and the event, with Bayliss a close 2nd, and Pepperdine 3rd. The Ian's were next up with Ian Priest (Ripon) 4th and Ian Bradley (Ouse Amateur) 5th.

Hykeham Streaker Open - photo © Andy Ritchie

A socially distanced prize-giving was held with 1st going to Peter Gray, 2nd Nigel Pepperdine and 3rd David Smith. First local boat was Steve Sallis in 4th.

A big thank-you from Hykeham Sailing club goes out to the Streaker fleet for showing support to our club and the event, and we hope to welcome everyone back soon.

It was great to see lots of people down the club helping out, and racing again after the last year.

Overall Results: