The Dave Ovington
Memorial Trophy
The final event of the Musto Skiff UK Travellers circuit
was held at Grafham water over the 5th & 6th November,
with Saturday's racing being held as part of the Dave
Ovington Memorial Trophy. It was good to see a strong
20 boat turn out.
Saturday's racing was held with mixed fleet of Musto
Skiff's & B14's starting of the same start line.
With a tight schedule of races to get through, all races
were started under the black flag which caught out a
few over eager competitors. Racing was over a square
course with shifty conditions which made for interesting
and difficult reaches which saw many sailors swimming
into windward. Race one was won by Ian Trotter with
Richard Stenhouse 2nd, Graeme Oliver 3rd, & Martin
Boatman 4th. In Race 2 Ian Trotter again mastered the
conditions to lead Richard, & Graeme home with Ant
Chapman taking 4th. With the breeze picking up a bit
for last race 3 Sten stretched his legs and took the
win from Oliver 2nd, Dave Poston 3rd, and Trotter 4th.
The main event of the weekend was the Saturday night
party in celebration of Dave's life, with DJ Gareth
Edwards on the ones & twos. The bar was drunk dry,
and some serious dancing took place (well a mixture
of punk & moshing). The management attempted to
shut-down the music at 12:30am but only to be hi-jacked
by Simon Hiscock's, until the power was cut (but glad
to say the bar remained open!)
Sunday dawned with pretty rough conditions for all,
and the weather wasn't that great either. Only twelve
skiff's made it to the start line in 20 - 25 knot conditions.
The remainder thinking that not being able to stand
or focus might impede their ability to sail a Musto
Skiff. The weather, or the hangovers, took there toll
round the race course with only 5 finishers. Richard
Stenhouse taking the win, closely followed by Martin
Goodlad, Dave Poston, Kit Stenhouse & Mark Addison.
The racing was then postponed until the afternoon. Although
Richard, Martin & Dave thought it had been abandoned
so stayed out for some excellent rides and to try and
record a fastest speed for the Garmin "Speed Freaks"
Competition. Much to Sten's disappointment he only registered
21.3 knots; more breeze required ...
Dave Poston lead race 5 from the start and showed great
speed to stay ahead of Richard until the last tack before
the line and was passed with yards to spare. Martin
Goodlad finished 3rd with Kit Stenhouse 4th. Race 6
again saw Poston charging off from the start line only
to be passed by Richard. Kit Stenhouse was in a strong
3rd place until she decided to impale herself on the
committee boat and let Martin through to take 3rd.
The final results were
1st Richard Stenhouse 6 pts,
2nd Dave Poston 17pts,
3rd Martin Goodlad 23pts,
4th Kit Stenhouse 31pts,
5th Mark Addison 44pts,
6th Ian Trotter 48pts,
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