Wednesday Evening Series at Frensham Pond Sailing Club

Frensham Pond Wednesday Evening Series Prize Winners © Megan Pascoe

End of the summer at Frensham as the Wednesday evening series finishes. For me evening sailing is some of the best racing that I have seen at any club I've belonged to. I don't know why, but people are more likely to hang around for dinner and a pint after racing and there is a real buzz around the club.

As one of the Laser sailors put it this Wednesday evening when he stuck around for prize-giving. "I wish I had done this more often this year, it is really fun". It makes the week go shorter and definitely keeps me going until the weekend. Some definitely use it as their weekly catch up and Tony even managed to take the dog for a sail.

This year's series has been slightly quiet, I think due to the rain and poor weather at the start of the season. Still 110 entries with 96 helms and 19 different classes over 20 races. The top competing classes were the RS200, ILCA 7, Solos and GP14s. We also saw 8 Phantoms, a class that is certainly growing. The top 10 are always spread over the PY list. The quicker boats finishing before the wind died but with a few specialist light wind boats the fleet is always mixed. I suppose it is the great thing about sailing that you can have so many different people all in one club and we can all compete together.

We've seen some new sailors this year and it is always great to see Stuart Brierly in his Laser as he only races Wednesday nights. Neil Carruthers finishing 11th in his Solo won the top boat to not finish inside the top 12 in the last 3 years. Also in a Solo Martin Kemp won the Endeavour prize finishing 18th. Martin is always out and is getting quicker in his new Solo. We just need to encourage him to get to the start line on time. Monty Slump won the first youth helm in the 200 finishing 19th.

The top 10 was still shuffling round right up to the last race. With only 8 races to count it is all about improving your score. I won in the 2.4 but I got lucky that we had a light wind May before the weed came. 10th overall was Stuart in his ILCA 7. 8th and 9th were brothers Adrian and Simon Law in their Solos with only 3 points between them. Just in front and needing the last light wind race to get 7th was Rob Beere in his ILCA 7. John Brooker in 6th didn't have the best last race but still had a nice points gap to be in the prizes.

Jeremy Hudson finished 5th in his K1 got a bit hammered by the weed later in the season but has practiced his de-weeding technique. Bryan Taylor finished just ahead of Jez on count back in his Solo after a string of 2nds to end the series. Clive Eplett in his 100 decided that it was too light to actually gain points on the last race and to be fair made probably made the best choice to prop up the bar. He was relying on one of us to stop Rebecca Videlo winning in her ILCA 7 but as she led from start to finish that wasn't to happen and they finished on equal points with Rebecca getting it on count back.

Massive thanks to Paul Trevan for the results and to Rob Anstey for running prize-giving and filling in in the galley when required. Also, to all those who have done their duties which makes racing possible.

It's been an amazing summer at Frensham both domestically and at away events. We are looking forward to the ILCA open next weekend and the RSG open the following Wednesday. We still have some of the club travelling and it is pretty mad trying to keep up with all the results.

Overall Results: