A number of visiting boats joined club members for the Richard Thacker Memorial Regatta at the Welland Yacht Club.
Thacker was a past Commodore of the club who passed away in 2017 and the club’s open regatta sees boats competing for this trophy.
With excellent conditions, a total of 17 boats started the first race and the start line was not a place for nervous sailors.
From the starting signal, boats were fighting to break clear at the front and after a collision it was the visiting boats who made the first gains with Paul Burton (Girton Sailing Club) sailing a Super Nova in the lead from Alan Bishop’s Solo (Hunt’s Sailing Club) followed by Sam Mason’s very large Albacore (Girton Sailing club).
Welland’s own Andy Prior, sailing a Laser, was in contention and soon became locked in a tacking duel with Mason until a quick evasive tack resulted in a capsize and broken kicker.
Other Welland boats were also keeping up with the pack including the slower Laser Radials of Tom Bell and Alan Cox and the full rig Lasers of Kieron Powell and Mark Holland.
Occupying what was a very impressive mid-field position was Buddy Hunt (11) in a very small and very slow Optimist dinghy. Although from Maidenhead Sailing Club, Hunt is the grandson of Welland member Cox.
As the race progressed, Prior overtook the Welland boats and both he and Bell stayed in contention with the visiting boats, resulting in them finishing fifth and sixth.
Once handicaps were applied the slower Welland boats moved up the rankings, with Bell second and Prior fourth.
A couple of boats had pulled out by the second race and the wind had dropped slightly which should have made the start slightly easier but despite this two of the visitors were over the start line on the gun and had to return leaving the way for Prior to get a good start fighting for the lead with Bishop.
Welland’s Powell also got a good start and was always in contention as was Bell in the slower Laser Radial.
Hunt’s Optimist made excellent progress up the first beat and it took many minutes for a lot of the larger quicker boats to pass it.
Prior was always close to the slower lead Solo but was never able to pass it and finished second both on the water and on corrected time.
Visitor Steve Bishop (Super Nova) from Girton took third from Hunt.
By the third race the wind had dropped considerably and the officer of the day set a shorter course for the remaining 13 boats.
This time the fleet got off cleanly with no collisions or issues and the race soon fell into a similar pattern.
The visiting Solo pulled out a small lead whilst Prior spent the race sailing in close contention with the visiting Super Nova of Bishop and Powell a short distance ahead.
As the race progressed the Solo opened up its lead to take first on the water and on handicap, whilst Prior and the Super Nova swapped positions. Prior took third on the water but second on handicap and although Powell dropped behind Burton he always remained close enough to keep the pace on handicap to give him fourth.
It had been an excellent day’s racing for the club and the visitor sailors and Thacker’s son, James presented the winner’s trophy to Alan Bishop from Hunts Sailing Club.
Prior was second, visitor Steve Bishop took third, with Bell in fourth ahead of Powell in fifth.
The remaining Welland boats were Cox 7th, Chapman 8th, Mark Holland 10th, Mitchell 12th, Follington 13th, Boyd and Bonser 14th, Richard Holland 15th, Van Haren 16th, Murray 17th and Agar 18th.
