Autumn Open Regatta at Hickling Broad Sailing Club

On Sat 14th and Sun 15th October the race team at Hickling Broad Sailing Club went weak at the knees at the sight of 67 entries milling around in the dinghy park at the annual Autumn Regatta. This, for those that are not familiar with the venue, is a lot! 19 very welcome visitors, including 11 enthusiastic and noisy Phantoms and 6 Enterprises joined the 47 home boats for two days of enormously enjoyable racing on the beautiful Hickling Broad. The Enterprises were contesting a round of the Eastern Area Travellers Series within the Allcomers fleet. The weather played ball and provided a F2-4 easterly for 3 races each day.

The Phantoms made such a loveable nuisance of themselves during the Saturday that the race team felt it best to get them out of the way early on Sunday by arranging separate starts. See separate report for the details. The Allcomers fleet consisted of 47 entries representing 16 classes, whilst the juniors totalled 7.

Throughout the weekend, the junior fleet provided close racing with Matthew Bates and Dale Lawson in the Splashes battling to the end, both racers taking wins but Matthew Bates stealing it by a point. Ruth Hobson also bagged a race win from them and came in third. All of the results were incredibly close on corrected time and a great time was had by all.

The allcomers fleet was as diverse as it was competitive, with Norfolk Punts, Wayfarers, RS400s and 500s, Lasers, Solos and even a Gull in the top 10! James Jarvey and Dave Hearsum dominated in Punt 51 winning 5 of 6 races. The only thing between them and the clean sweep was a cracking twin wire asymmetric wipeout in race 6! Simon and Rachel Clayton in Punt 88 claimed a very close second overall and picked up the remaining available win, this in spite of a snapped brand new boom in the second race. Fortunately there do tend to be spare punt bits floating around! Third place was occupied by Peter Dearnley and Jack Coleman/Kate in a Wayfarer who were consistently the best of the rest. 4th,5th, and 6th all finished up with equal points, such was the closeness of the racing. The remainder of the fleet enjoyed many private battles which were recounted and debated during the tea stops between races and again, a great weekend was enjoyed by all that took part and spectated.

The Enterprises added a welcome splash of colour to the broad and enjoyed good racing. Only 4 Ents were racing on Saturday but the numbers were bolstered on Sunday. Kevin Edwards took 3 wins out of 3 on the Sunday, whilst R Deller and D Goodwin shared the seconds. D Gentry picked up a couple of thirds. Trish Hudson claimed 3rd overall thanks to a 1st and 2nd on Saturday.
A big thank you must go to race officer Phil Atherton and the team who were expecting something like half the turnout, yet coped admirably.
Overall Results:

Phantoms assended to Hickling

On 14th and 15th October 13 Phantoms descended on Hickling Broad to take part in the Annual Autumn Open Regatta, but it only took three races for the race officer and his team to draw the conclusion that in order for anyone else in the 67 strong Allcomers fleet to stand any kind of chance on the Sunday, they had better give the Phantoms their own start...

Sadly not quite true, but it did free up the start line for the rest of the fleet on the Sunday and allow the big boys an impromptu opportunity to battle it out unhindered for three races. 11 visitors from as far a field as Nottingham (well done Andy!), Creaksea and various Norfolk clubs made the trip to join the lone local for a couple of days of supremely close racing and a couple of beers on Saturday evening.
Saturdays racing was as part of the large Allcomers fleet and the Phantoms couldn’t quite do enough to nail the quickest punts on corrected time due to lightish winds, but Chris Sallis demonstrated fine form and took three wins while Daren Pike, David Frary and Simon Feilden argued loudly at times but always nicely about 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places in each of the races. Jim Frost nailed race one to claim 5th but very gallantly offered his retirement following a disputed incident at a leeward mark with a member of the Allcomers fleet. The rest of the fleet were not far behind and any mistakes, even minor, were punished by dropped places.
Sallis gave the rest of us a chance on Sunday by only completing one race, which of course he won, followed by Feilden, Pike and James Case. Race two was an extremely close run thing with Case catching Feilden on the final run, only to lose water to him on the final mark. Order was Feilden, Case, followed by Pike then Frary who decided to get closer than close and capsize on top of each other right on the finish line! Rod Thorpe snapped at heels all the way round to claim 5th.
Obviously fired up, Case stormed race 3 and despite their best efforts Frary and Feilden could not catch up. It finished in that order with Chris Roberts claiming 4th.
Overall, everyone came expecting a weekend of handicap racing, and went away having had a great weekend of class racing. Our thanks to the race team for arranging the separate starts. We hope to see you all next year.
Overall Results:

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