Report by Brennan Robinson
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.
The five boats provided incredibly close racing with positions and the overall lead changing frequently.
Andy started off very strong but broke a trapeze elastic in race 1. He came back strong to win the second race, but a capsize in race 3 left him more than a Whittle disappointed.
Dave Annan (Dave AndAnne) played a strategically conservative game in the shifty conditions, which granted him the consistency that would (spoiler alert!) give him the overall win in the end. Simon Kitchen really got it cooking at times and was always in the thick of things. Always prominent on the first beats.
It took Brennan Robinswim a little while to find his feet and remember which way goes up, but once he got that figured out the results improved commensurately.
But the real headliner was Tom Taylor who sailed a consistently good regatta, right up until the last 20m of the last race. After a shaky first beat he snuck his way into the lead like a thief in the night. He was leading through the last bottom gate when fate (and his boat) turned on him and sent him swimming – see video attached. Brennan, Dave and Andy slipped past which handed the overall win to Dave. Tom took second on a tie-breaker with Brennan, Andy came fourth with Simon fifth.
Overall results:
Dave Annan 2 (3) 1 3 = 9
Tom Taylor 1 2 (4) 4 = 11
Brennan Robinson 3 (5) 2 1 = 11
Andy Whittle (dnf) 1 3 2 = 12
Simon kitchen 4 4 5 5 = 18
