Welland Yacht Club’s new season got under way on Sunday with and excellent turnout of 13 boats for the Robert Creek Shield.
The opening day of action saw three races contested, with ace Andy Prior winning all three of them to start off as he means to go on.
The competitors were greeted with a gentle and sometimes variable breeze, with sunny intervals, as the season got going.
A two-lap race started up river towards number three buoy with a long and short tack to get the fleet away.
Without too much incident it was Tom Bell (Laser) who got away from Mark Scourfield (Solo), while Gerri van Haren (Phantom) and Prior and Mark Holland followed closely behind.
With an easy gybe at the buoy, Prior gained an overlap to move up two places for the return to the clubhouse.
Scourfield then suffered from a rudder coming adrift and went into the bank to repair, so at the clubhouse turn it was Prior at the front, followed by Bell, van Haren and Holland.
The rest of the race followed the same pattern, with Prior taking the line honours from van Haren, followed by Bell and Holland.
After handicaps were applied Prior held onto his lead, with Bell up to second and Scourfield – who had rejoined the race – who finished third.
The course remained the same for race – and all 13 boats started, with Prior caught out for being over eager and found himself over the line at the start and having to return to continue.
It was Scourfield who took advantage at the front, with Bell in close attendance followed by Holland.
At the turning buoy it was close racing with five boats converging as Bell gained the advantage and rounded first followed by van Haren and the resurgent Prior.
With the wind starting to slightly increase and become patchy the race was quite short as tacking was only limited, with increased cloud cover it was the larger boat of van Haren that took line honours from Prior, Bell and Holland.
With the handicaps applied it was once again Prior who secured the win followed by Scourfield and Bell.
Just nine boats came to the start line for race three, which was on the same course.
Prior timed his start well this time, with van Haren and Scourfield in close attendance.
With a limited amount of tacking again, the place changes were few and far between as the wind was patchy.
With a number of retirements during the race from members of HM Coastguard on a call out, it was van
Haren who took the line first followed by Prior, Scourfield and Helen Boyd in her Solo.
Once handicaps were applied it was Prior who completed a treble of wins from, Scourfield, van Haren and Boyd.
Overall: 1st Prior 3pts; 2nd Scourfield 7pts; 3rd van Haren 16pts.
