Bart's Bash at Crosby Sailing Club
by Ian Middleton 24 Sep 2014 20:51 NZST
21 September 2014
Crosby SC held their Bart's Bash event at Crosby Lakeside centre, welcoming a number of non members to join them. They had a traveller from Southport SC, along with 40+ visiting Sea Cadets, who where holding a regatta at the same time, and fellow lakeside club members from Crosby Scouts and Guides club.
The whole event started on the Saturday afternoon with the setting up of the course, using four massive inflatable pillar marks supplied by the centre. Rumour had it that Lee, the duty coach, had blown them up using personal lung power. The basic distances calculated to make sure the course would be long enough.
Sunday dawned with not a breath of wind and a perfect mirror finish to the lake. Not good... The Commodores wife even resorted to social media to source some privately funded wind turbines to blow the boats around. By 12 noon there were patches of wind, but nowhere in the area needed. The fleet set sail from a very crowded launching area, with the Sea Cadets sailing their first regatta race. Some rusty souls tagged onto their fleets to get some practice around he course.
By 13.10hrs there was sufficient wind to run the Barts Bash race. The club regulars set themselves up on the start line for their space, whilst the 6 club Toppers looked on in awe trying to figure out where to go. The Sea Cadets who had been on the water joined in. The flag dropped and 35 boats thundered down the lake to the windward mark, led by the Phantom and RS300 of Tim and Matt Mercer, and the Int canoe of Chris Gaskin. The Graduate of Chris Parker from Southport was well up with the fleet after a over the line mishap at the start. The fleet spread out around the four laps. Matt in his RS300 took place over the water by 6 seconds from father Tim. The Int Canoe was 16 seconds behind the phantom. They were followed home by the other 32 boats. The committee boat team working tirelessly to record the finishers, who finshed sometimes three and four abreast.
When all the fleets returned to the hard, Commodore Mark Blanchard thanked all the competitors for turning out and welcomed all to take part in the rest of the days races. He noted to the assembled, that he hadn't seen so many boats on the club start line for over a decade and hoped that some would take part in the coming Autunm and Winter racing to be held soon. A big thanks was given to all club members and centre staff who had helped to make it such a great days sailing. They look forward to Barts Bash 2015, same time same place.
Overall Results:
1 Garduate, Chris Parker (Southport SC)
2 Phantom, Tim Mercer (Crosby SC) 1st Master
3 RS300, Matt Mercer (CSC)
4 Solo, Ian Middleton (CSC)
5 Solo, Roy White (CSC) 1st Grand Master
6 Laser, Vinny Charnley (CSC)
7 Laser Radial, Amy Mercer (CSC)
8 GP14, Sam Bradley (Crosby Scout & Guides)
9 Topper, George Roche (CSC)
10 Pico, Jack Bostock