Merlin Rocket National Championship sponsored by Aspire at Tenby Sailing Club - Day 3

To quote Bruce Willis in Die Hard "Yippee ki-yay!!"

As a household, we have all been looking for a dolphin to interview since arriving on Saturday for the Aspire Merlin Rocket National Championships 2024, unfortunately the dolphins have all, er, disappeared, so the following is our own somewhat chaotic take on proceedings.

Merlin Rocket Nationals at Tenby day 3 - photo © Alistair Mackay

The Crews race was scheduled to take place on Day 3. Going into the race, the smart money is undoubtedly on one of the following teams:

In no particular order, and in all probability missing the eventual winner we have the following teams:

• James & Mark - Reigning youth champion
• Tom & Maddie - Managing to sail with their other half, 15th at Salcombe
• Mary & Rupert - Managing to sail with their other half, 21st at Salcombe
• Ollie & Taxi - Did you know he has also sailed with Tom Gillard?
• Hayden & Arron - Incredibly quick, but probably DNC
• Matt & Jon - Can really put the bow down
• Rick & James - What shall we do with the drunken sailor(s)?
• Rory & John - "He was good in an oppie aged 9"
• Chris & Ian - Martin dynasty having a crack at the real prize
• Megan & Clive - Get sailing back into the Paralympics

Disappointingly, the decision was made early in the day not to sail the crews race today leaving this as a runners and riders edition for the one-race, winner takes all, championships that grants helms the ability to demonstrate they are actually qualified to offer gentle encouragement.

Merlin Rocket Nationals at Tenby day 3 - photo © Alistair Mackay

Even more concerningly, with three races scheduled for Wednesday as Thursday and Friday are apparently looking problematic, there are concerns as to whether the most important of races will be run this year. There are rumours of industrial action, the crews' union threatening a lock-in.

Moving back to the side-show that is the Aspire Merlin Rocket National Championships, there were two choices out on the racecourse today: send it, pupils fully dilated, while yelling profanities; or be devoured by a salty sea monster. Some crews, did both.

Merlin Rocket Nationals at Tenby day 3 - photo © Alistair Mackay

In the fifth race for the Howard Trophy, it paid to start near the pin, sail very quickly to the right, and ride the biggest, saltiest sea monster you could find downhill.

The best at this were Stu Bithell & Tom Pygall, followed by Christian Birrell & Sam Brearey, and Taxi Davis & Ollie Meadowcroft. Having inverted their ship, presumably to prevent excessive flogging of their sails pre-start, Ben Saxton & Matt Rainback got back on track as normal service was resumed sailing home in their now familiar position of fourth, while Jon Gorringe and Matt Currell rounded out the top five.

Merlin Rocket Nationals at Tenby day 3 - photo © Alistair Mackay

Following the conclusion of the race, the PRO decided too many of the fleet had fallen prey to sea monsters as he sent everyone home.

This leaves us to grant our awards of sailing merit for the day.

There were a number of potential recipients for the 'William Warren Award for Misfortune', honourable mentions go to Alex Warren & Jonty Freeman for cheese-wiring their mast and Ed Chapman & Faye Chatterton for snapping their main jellyfish basher, however today this award goes to Tom Stewart and Rob Allen for donating the majority of their rudder blade to join the massive jellyfish as an obstacle on the racecourse.

What Went Well with the current overall leaders Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey during the Merlin Rocket Nationals at Tenby - photo © Alistair Mackay

The 'Didn't Quite Pull That Off Award', for attempting the impossible, and well, not quite pulling it off, goes to Taxi Davis & Ollie Meadowcroft for falling over while trying to gybe inside Stu & Tom to take the lead. This makes it even more impressive that they still made the podium.

The 'Alphabet Award' for not achieving a numeric value on their scorecard goes to Rupert & Mary Henderson-White for being one of the few crews to get letters other than RET or DNC. Incidentally Rupert and Mary are also recipients of the 'Jonty Freeman Award' for being incredibly lovely by exonerating themselves for making contact with a very wobbly mark of the course. In these conditions, frankly very few of their competitors would have given one, as they would likely either have been bellowing in their state of mania, or grimly clinging on for dear life. To reinforce their recipiency of the 'Jonty Freeman Award', Rupert and Mary also managed not to kill one of your anonymous authors while riding one of the almighty sea creatures we have previously mentioned.

The 'Going Undercover Award' for packing up early goes to Ed Chapman. We hope he will be seen in the future with more carbon in his centreboard.

Finally, the '... ---... Award' goes to the Tenby Sailing Club rescue team and shore crew who, frankly, are a credit to humanity.

The innovation that is asking households to author reports after an afternoon of drinking, may not continue.

Signing off, yippee ki-yay!!!

Thanks to our sponsors Aspire Financial Advisers, Allspars, Becky Bettesworth, CF by L and L, GK Engineering and In The Welsh Wind.

Results after Day 3: