As many of us hang up our sailing boots for the winter it is a good opportunity to reflect back on what has been a great season. The MUSTO Skiff fleet in the UK has been enjoying growing numbers year on year for the last 8 seasons.
The MUSTO Skiff Autumn training event was aimed at those sailors in their second and third seasons who had worked out how to sail their boats and were now keen on competing better at Open Meetings and Championships. Dan Henderson (MUSTO World Champion 2011) was lead coach.
Going into the MUSTO Skiff Eastbourne Open, it looked like it was going to be a tense battle between Danny (dog) Vincent and Andrew Tarboton, with Ben Schooling and the dark horse Richard Pelley as strong contenders.
The event saw a fleet of 22 MUSTO’s being joined by a local 29er and the 49er of Matty and Jamie Lyons. With a fleet of Lasers and FF15’s running of a concurrent start line for the club regatta it was a tightly packed course!
Fifty-six MUSTO Skiffs descended upon Castle Cove Sailing Club for their 2018 Nationals. With sunshine and a great forecast for the event, the fleet were raring to get on the water for some close racing inside Weymouth harbour.
The weather forecast for the weekend of the 7th and 8th of July looked ideal for sun bathing, but not at all inspiring for sailing with very light Northerlies predicted. That said, if you are likely to get a true sea breeze in the Solent, Lymington is a good place to start looking. With this in mind 8 MUSTO sailors entered the event.
Over 7th and 8th of July, two MUSTO Skiffs took part in the East Coast Piers Race (ECPR), which is traditionally a catamaran event involving a 48 mile long distance race from Marconi Sailing Club in the River Blackwater and racing through a series of gates to Walton-on-the-Naze and back.
This past weekend was the Asymmetric Open at Grafham Water and the organising committee did a stellar job of organising a great day for sailing on Saturday and a great day for tanning on Sunday. The regatta consisted of four races in breeze ranging from 5-12 knots. GWSC fielded four Mustos and Andy Whittle travelled up from Essex to join in the fun.
We met with Russ at 10am Saturday. From the forecast it was clear we set for a great day Saturday with 8-10 mph of breeze, but the possibility of no wind on Sunday. It was quickly agreed that we’d have a full day sailing Saturday with a thorough analysis on Sunday before Russ leaves at midday.
Making my first visit to Largs in quite some time I was very much looking forward to seeing for myself what this venue, the host of the 2019 UK Nationals, would have to offer. Quite a lot as it turns out.
