Alton Water 2020 Fox's Chandlery & Anglian Water Frostbite Series - Week 1

Week 1 of the Alton Water 2020 Fox's Chandlery & Anglian Water Frostbite Series © Tim Bees

With new management at Alton Water Sports Centre, no-one was sure how this popular Frostbite Series would be organised this year, but with some good teamwork from Anglian Water providing safety cover as well as the centre's usual staff and facilities including the café (plus free parking for competitors) the newly-formed Tattingstone Valley loaning their safety boat and race equipment to the usual volunteer race crew and Fox's Chandlery sponsoring the prizes as they have in the past, a seamless operation was possible.

With sixty entries for the nine-week series and 51 on the water for the first two races on 5 January, numbers appear to be holding up.

The usual five-fleet format was used, with separate starts at three-minute intervals for Fast, Asymmetrics, Lasers, Medium and Slow fleets. There was a light, shifty south-westerly veering westerly, with some stronger puffs at times and although it was a grey day with some drizzle, there was enough wind and a quick turnaround between the two races to ensure the sailors didn't get too cold.

Water levels in the reservoir are well up and the race officer set a fairly long lap course to split boats up and give people room for mark roundings and separation downwind.

The boats were fairly evenly split between the five fleets and it was good to see some RS300s back racing again this Frostbite. The ever-eager Asymmetrics had a general recall in the second race. Stephen Videlo and Ethan Davies who won the series last year got off to a flying start winning both their races in their RS200 as did Isobel Stewart and Tom Krailing in their Cadet in the Slow fleet.

Week 1 of the Alton Water 2020 Fox's Chandlery & Anglian Water Frostbite Series - photo © Tim Bees

In the other fleets, there were different winners for each race, making the field wide open as we go into the second week.

Next week promises more wind and hopefully the mild weather will continue for a while yet.

Race results can be found on the 'Alton Water Frostbite Results' Facebook page and photos on the 'Alton Water Sailing' Facebook page and there are more of Tim Bees' excellent photos too.

Week 1 Results - Fast Fleet:

Week 1 Results - Asymmetric Fleet:

Week 1 Results - Laser Fleet:

Week 1 Results - Medium Fleet:

Week 1 Results - Slow Fleet: