Leigh and Lowton Juniors take three trophies at the Southport Junior 12 Hour Race
Junior 12 Hour Race, Southport Marine Lake, 29th June 2013
Sailed in a Force 2-3 breeze with Force 4 gusts this year, Leigh and Lowton’s juniors performed brilliantly to take 5th place out of 29 boats. In addition to this result they won the trophies for the fastest lady helm (Hannah Bristow), the Last Gasp Trophy for the fastest U18 crew on their last two laps and the fastest last two laps of all crews. They were also the second Enterprise, being only beaten by the West Lancs Yacht Club team.
Hannah won the fastest lady helm trophy by a margin of about 20seconds on the post 4.00pm lap. She and Bobby Hewitt then stormed to victory in the last two laps by sailing laps with total times for the two laps 2 minutes faster than the teams which won the event and squeezing West Lancs out of the prizes by about 35 seconds over the two laps.
Near misses on other trophies were losing out on the fastest first two laps by an under 18 team by 19 seconds and coming second in the U14 post 6.00pm lap by only 4 seconds!
This was a sterling performance from our juniors who have shown consistent improvement in the race results over the last 3 years, working up from 7th overall to 5th overall and increasing their trophy haul from 1 to 3. This year’s team average age was under 13 years old so we have high hopes for futures years’ races.
Once again, well done to all the team which consisted of Matt Leckie, Hannah Bristow, Izzy Bristow, Maddie Bristow, Bobby Hewitt, Haydn Griffiths, John Wingeatt, Olivia Cuthbert, Gareth Staples-Jones, Holly Lowe, Harvey Leigh and Lewis Coop.
To see photos from the event, click on the link.