M&S District Marblehead Interclub 2 at Eastleigh & District Model Boat Club

Marbleheads at Eastleigh © Roger Stollery

Marbleheads at Eastleigh © Roger Stollery

Marbleheads at Eastleigh © Roger Stollery

On the 17th April Eastleigh & District Model Boat Club hosted the 4th Games and Inter Club Marblehead event at the Lakeside Eastleigh on a fantastic spring day, the sun was shining the birds were singing and 14 hopeful skippers from 5 clubs arrived in time for the 9-45 briefing. The wind was light varying from North East to North with a few holes, but blowing more or less down the length of the lake. OOD Robert Hobbs and his team of Danny Wilson, Mick Croxson, Robin Ancliffe and Alfred Flitney set a port rounding course of two long triangles.

Sixteen races were sailed with breaks between each set of four. We sailed one fleet of 14 yachts with the observing being undertaken by the host club members, which ensured that the skippers could concentrate on enjoying the cut and thrust of each race. There were two general recalls due to mass collisions at the pin end in the light airs and the remainder of the racing was conducted in a professional and sportsmanlike manner with any incidents being resolved quickly and amicably on the water. All the race equipment and the dinghy, used for buoy movement and yacht rescue, were arranged by Chris Wilson.

The racing produced an outstanding performance by Roger Stollery just amassing 21 points for the 16 races with 3 discards.

Racing finished at 4pm the results were calculated and the site tidied up and the top three skippers were presented with a bottle of wine and a potted Begonia each to take home. Roger Stollery thanked Robert and his team for running an excellent interclub event in a really friendly atmosphere.

There were 7 race winners and 9 designs of Marblehead taking part which is not bad for a class that was suffering from support a few years ago and is now flourishing with the continuing success of the GAMES series and a really good website, www.marbleheadsailing.wordpress.com.

This event usually demonstrates the biggest variety of designs than any other Marblehead event, not least because prolific local designer/builder, Chris Wilson always has something new and unique on show. This year his 'SCIMITAR' design with its 'dreadnought' wave cutting bow was full tuned and going really well. John Cleave launched his new Stollery designed UPROAR at the event with a very clever unique swing rig by Graham Bantock from the 1990s. It is a cantilevered wing mast where the geometry of the yard fitting creates the automatic over-rotation necessary to give a really good airflow entry to the mainsail. One or two technical difficulties prevented John from showing its true potential until the last race, which he won easily.

Overall Results: