Phantom Midland Circuit Round 5 at Shustoke Sailing Club

Phantom Midland Circuit at Shustoke © Lawrence Dooley

Phantom Midland Circuit at Shustoke © Ria Burgoine

Shustoke Sailing Club hosted six visitor Phantoms to make nine for the fifth round of the Midland Circuit. We were greeted with breakfast pastries, glorious sunshine, plenty of water and wind down the lake.

The racing format was for Phantoms to start first with a 15 strong handicap fleet starting 5 minutes afterwards and the first two races held back to back.

Your reporter was minus his usual boat with it being left at Bassenthwaite (car failure - long saga) and had engaged the race by resurrecting Barcode (1111) from the club field. A shackle failure made me 4 mins late for the start, so missed the early stages of the race. By the time I had sorted myself, the fleet settled into a race long battle between Adam Froggat in the lead, with San Coxon a close second, then Andy Pyett and John Harrison dicing for third and fourth. The Shustoke boys followed with Andy Smith, struggling to achieve his form of recent weeks. The first race finished in that order.

The second race had a big shift on its first start resulting in a general recall - not bad for a 9 boat fleet - followed by a shift 30 seconds from the start favouring Jim and Andy at the pin end. Jim used a good dose of local knowledge to get to the first mark first followed by Adam with the fleet hard on their heels. Adam got clear, and Jim slipped back, with it ending with similar results to the first.

A gentle lunch followed with some hasty repairs and tuning undertaken by a few, allowing us all to enjoy the final race. The wind had shifted and faded, so the OOD set a simpler course and the fleet started first time. The battles were resumed for first and second with Sam pushing Adam all the way, with a similar battle between Andy P, John Harrison and Jim for the middle order. Results followed in that order.

Overall, an excellent day's racing and our thanks to the Shustoke team who looked after us. Our next big event is the nationals at Sunderland on the 6th to 8th Sept and the last Midland event is at Burton on 13th October.

Overall Results: