Optimist Battle

Optimists have been out in force on three Sundays at Leigh and Lowton Sailing Clubs Winter Series. The North Optimist Championship has been held alongside the Tipsy Icicle and has quickly earned a reputation as the toughest winter oppy racing in the North. Racing has been divided into three divisions depending on which training squad the sailor was part of. The open competition attracted national, intermediate and development squad sailors, zone was the RYA zone squads from across the regions and club was for the most daring beginners not yet part of a squad.

All the starts and most of the first beats have been video’d to allow for sailor, coach and parent analysis. The videos have been uploaded to the www.northoptimist.uk racing page. They make interesting watching.

Seventeen sailors have attended from across the regions including Midlands,Wales, North East and Scotland.

Chris Leigh commented for an inaugural year the series has been a great success for optimist sailing in the North of the country. The sailing has been of high quality and extremely close. After three months of sailing, no less than three sailors where vying for podium positions all on the same points with the final order settled after a typical optimist protest session after an incident with all boats involved at the last leward mark. Richard Catchpole, sailing manager of LLSC chaired the discussions and frayed nerves where calmed.

So to the results:-

Open Class

• 1st Drew Gibbons        Redesmere
• 2nd Archie Leckie        Leigh & Lowton
• 3rd Catie Warburton     Loch Venechar

Zone Squad

• 1st Luke Stuewart      Kielder Water
• 2nd Ben Russell        Kielder Water        (11 Points)
• 3rd Sian Talbot          Leigh and Lowton  (11 Points)
• 4th Lewis Coop          Leigh and Lowton  (11 Points)
• 5th Jonny Lathom      Leigh and Lowton

Club Winner

• Hazell McDowell           Hollowell

Top placed Girl

• Sian Talbot               Leigh and Lowton

This photo says it all. Talbot(5911) and Coop(0000) battling it out on the last beat of the last race in the series to finish both on 11 points.

Luke Stewart from “The North East” claimed the silverware from the hotly contest zones quad.

Ben Russell claims second for the North East on count back. Is that Lewis Coop in the background.

Thank lord for the girls. Sian Talbot saving face for Leigh and Lowton and taking Top Girl and 3rd zone place.

Pre-series favourite Leigh grabbed the last two bullets. The old injury and training commitments kept him away from the podium.

Local lad Leckie taking a bullet.