Andy Prior enjoyed a clean sweep of wins at Welland Yacht Club’s latest regatta.
Sunday saw 11 boats take to the water for the fourth regatta of the season.
Still keeping to the pursuit format the first boat away was the Graduate of Neal Tack with crew Rebecca Slator.
Then it was the Laser Radials of Alan Cox, Lucy Burton, Katie Follington and Mark Holland.
On equal start times was the Solo of Martin Cook and the Europes of Rosalyn Nickols and Brian Cobb.
The OK of Andy Agar followed and finally the full Lasers of Andy Prior and Tom Bell brought up the rear.
Although not quite as windy as the previous week there was still a reasonable breeze allowing Tack and Slator to pull out a good lead before the ensuing fleet chased after them.
Cook and Nickols were soon among the four radials with Cobb in turn getting caught by Prior and Bell in the full rig lasers closely followed by Agar.
With the wind shifting Cox got caught by a gust and capsized dropping a few places.
On rounding the top mark (buoy 4) for the first time Tack and Slator still had the lead from Nickols, then Cook, with Prior up to fourth, Bell fifth, Holland, Burton, Cox, Cobb, Agar and Follington following.
On the run back to the clubhouse Prior would move up to second, with Nickols third, while Cook and Bell closed in. Then slightly further back Holland soon got outrun by Cox with Burton, Follington, Cobb and Agar following.
Once a quarter of the way into the second lap, Prior would get the lead and as they rounded the top mark for the second time Tack and Slater held second from Nickols third, Bell fourth, Cook fifth.
On the run back down to the club house Bell would move to third and then overtook Nickols at the start of lap three. That’s how they finished with Prior taking the win, Bell second, Nickols third and Tack and Slator fourth.
After a short break the second and final race of the day got underway with 10 boats.
Tack and Slator maintained the lead on rounding the top mark, with Cox, Nickols, Prior, Bell and Holland next around the mark followed by Burton, Cobb, Agar and Follington.
On the run back to the clubhouse the two lasers of Prior and Bell would reel in Tack and Slator and get past just before rounding the bottom mark with the rest of the fleet led by Nickols not that far behind.
As they tacked their way back up the course Nickols moved to third then Cox moved to fourth with his sights set on third place as the clock ticked down the final minutes.
It was Prior who claimed the clean sweep of wins with Bell second again, mirroring the overall result. Cox was third in race two ahead of Nickols though she edged ahead in the overall standings with Tack and Slator fifth.
