Bucket & Spade Cup at Sheringham Boating Lake
by Andy Start 6 May 14:13 UTC
Bucket & Spade Cup at Sheringham Boating Lake © Andy Start
Huntingdon Radio Yacht Club go to the seaside
Our regular waters being unavailable as there was a large classic dinghy open meeting, we decided to have an awayday to the seaside, this was some time in the planning and ended up with motorhomes, caravans, Airbnb and B&Bs being deployed to make it a less stressful day.
After the journey up in some 11 degrees and rain that would have worried Noah, we awoke on Saturday morning to glorious sunshine, and following breakfast we mage our way to the historic Victorian boating lake in Sheringham, with 7 P's in mind Andy J had planned and made all the portable racing marks for the day, a posh couple of start finish marks and also remembered to bring the fishing pole (for when the commodore hooks himself around the mark (he did, early on)) and of course our race starter.
Now the lake is not huge and 7 boats would have been the limit for the start line, we had 9 entries, so using our trusty Afleet app, we deployed 2 heats and run the day using HMS, which worked seamlessly.
Racing started at Aprox 10.15, and did someone say shifty, on the beat, our little DF's tacked on their own, went onto a broad reach and a run, all without changing direction, so from the first race, we knew we were in for some fun.
Pushed on relentlessly by the club secretary, the races came thick and fast until coffee break, when true to form Stephen produced another fine selection of cakes, coffee over, we raced on until lunch time, the afternoon stint was starting to tell on a few as they were clearly flagging, but we did slow the racing down by a few seconds!
A further break for tea and another selection of cakes from Stephen, and we were into the final 45 minutes of the racing, which finally finished at 4pm.
Throughout the day we engaged with loads of spectators, explaining how the boats work etc.
We pressed the results tab on our tablet and revealed we had sailed 30 heats completing 15 races in total, with nearly every competitor winning at least one race, but there can only be one winner, and for our inaugural competition, our winner on the day was Andy Johnson, congrats, and thanks from all of us for organising such a great day of fun racing.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Sail No | Sailor | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | R7 | R8 | R9 | R10 | R11 | R12 | R13 | R14 | R15 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | 48 | Andy J | 3 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 36 |
| 2 | 83 | Andy S | 2 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 36 |
| 3 | 195 | Martin | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 39 |
| 4 | 204 | Stephen B | 2 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 39 |
| 5 | 65 | Ben W | 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 45 |
| 6 | 206 | Phil D | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 48 |
| 7 | 63 | Andy B | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 57 |
| 8 | 375 | Hayden | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 59 |
| 9 | 99 | Val | 3 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 83 |
Having never sailed on a lake at waist height, it was great walk alongside the boats, and see exactly what was happening, I think we all learned a lot from the day.
Post-racing most enjoyed a meal in the local Nepalese restaurant, a great way to top the day off, we look forward to 2025.