Grafham Training and Open Meeting 29th/30th November 2014

Lining up for the start. Photo Credit Nicola Evans

Report from David Summerville:

Following a successful Training Day on Saturday 29th November under the guidance of the boat’s designer, Dan Holman, and the inaugural AGM of the class on the Saturday evening, the 2014 Grafham Water D-Zero Open Meeting was held on Sunday 30th November in Westerly winds ranging from 6 to 14 knots under a mostly blue sky. Subsequent to a 20 boat turnout for the training, 17 boats participated in the racing and the entire weekend was generously sponsored by Suntouched Sailboats.

Race 1 was sailed in 6 – 8 knots. On the very long windward leg Richard Major, racing the D-Zero for the first time in a demo boat, swapped places with David Summerville in the shifting breeze, with the fleet very compressed. Richard was first round the windward mark followed closely by John Aston, Neil Washington and Mandy Horton. The leading 2 boats pulled away from the fleet on the 4 downwind legs in the patchy conditions, with Richard taking the bullet from John and Graeme Tumber taking the right hand lane to the finish to squeeze Neil out for a respectable 3rd, with Neil in 4th ahead of Mandy in 5th.

Race 2 was sailed in a lively 12 – 14 knots round an Olympic course. After a closely fought first beat David rounded the weather mark just ahead of Mike Hobin, with John, Dave Woods and Adrian Brunton in close attendance. David extended slightly down the 2 reaches with the following group converging at the leeward mark. Up the second beat, David and Mike worked to the left of the rhumb line, with Adrian and Dave heading hard right towards the starboard lay line. With more breeze and a right shift Adrian and Dave rounded the windward mark 1 and 2. David passed Dave down the run and pulled up to Adrian by the leeward mark, but Adrian was safe for the bullet with David in 2nd and Dave taking a well-earned 3rd. Mike eventually finished 4th with John in 5th.
With a break for lunch it was looking tight on the leaderboard. With a no discard 3 race series there were still 5 or 6 potential winners of the event.

Race 3 was again sailed around an Olympic course, with winds in the 10 – 13 knot range. John and David, lying 1st and 2nd overall after 2 races had a good battle up the first beat and rounded the first windward mark well clear of the chasing pack, which was headed by Mike. John and David extended their lead down the two reaches, with David getting past John on the 2nd reach, in what was now becoming the race for the event. Richard also sailed extremely well down the reaches to move into 3rd place. John managed to edge past David up the 2nd beat and was comfortably ahead by the weather mark. David managed to eat away at John’s lead down the final run and picked the angles well to move into the lead well before the leeward mark. At the finish David took the bullet, with John finishing 2nd and Richard in 3rd. Mike finished 4th again with Jon Cowper in 5th.

In all a very close event with helms from under 70kg and 5’6”, to 100kg and 6’4”, taking race wins. David Summerville took overall victory on countback after tying with John Aston on 9 points. Richard Major sailed very well into 3rd place, a further 3 points back. Close racing was the order of the day throughout the fleet, particularly in the breezier races 2 and 3.
Great prizes were provided by Suntouched Sailboats, in addition to which all participants were awarded a bottle of wine!

Upcoming events where the D-Zero will be in attendance are the Yorkshire Dales Brass Monkey on 27th December and the Grafham Grand Prix on 28th December, both of which form part of the GJW SailJuice Winter Series.

Full Results: