Classic Chase conditions welcomes sailors to the first event on the new Phantom midland circuit.

Chase Sailing club held it's first ever Phantom open meeting on Saturday. 23 Boats turned up to be greeted with a nice force 3-4 blowing from the north east. Race OOD John Froggott set a short beat across the pool followed by two long tight reaches down then back up the lake. This allowed the front runners including Andy Couch, Will Gulliver and Simon Hawkes to gain a significant lead after the first lap. Spectators were witness to a display of awesome downwind sailing by Andy Couch to allow him to win by a considerable distance. Behind him Simon and Will had there own fight to the finish with Will eventually second and Simon third. All the sailors came off the water for lunch and talk of making the second race less than an hour in length.

The wind increased just slightly after lunch and with blue skies and sunshine the second race got underway after a clean start. Predictably Andy Couch managed to pick the correct way up the first beat after tacking early onto port from the committee boat end to round first. Will Gulliver managed to find a path up the beat after starting at the pin end to round second. Again the leading boats managed to pull away down the reaches to allow Andy Couch to finish first with Will Gulliver Second and Simon Hawkes third.

The last race became a decider for second and third place, Andy having already done enough to win decided not to sail. This left Will Gulliver to lead the race from start to finish with Simon Coward sailing a suburb race to finish second and Alex Morrison chasing hard to finish third.

 A great day was had by all and a great start to the new Midlands Circuit. A big thank you must go out to RP Signs for sponsoring the Midland Circuit T Shirts and Rooster Sailing for supporting the series. Also thanks must go out all the boats who battled with road works and traffic to attend. See you all at Draycote for the second event.

Results

1st Andy Couch                       Blithfield
2nd Will Gulliver                       Northampton
3rd Simon Coward                   Northampton
4th Simon Hawkes                   Wimbleball
5th Alex Morrison                    Port Dinorwic
6th Paul Lester                        Chase
7th Mike Webb                        Delph
8th Philip Worth                      Delph
9th Jeremy Shinton                 Bartley
10th Pete Gough                     Draycote
11th Mark Weston                  West Riding
12th Richard Sims                   Carsington
13th Neil Boneham                  Bartley
14th Peter White                     Blithfield
15th Eddie Brookes                 Elton
16th Andy Costa                     Bartley
17th Adam Froggatt               Chase
18th John Reay                      Blithfield
19th Pete Isherwood              Chase
20th Mike Potter                     Blithfield
21st Steve Turner                  Chase
22nd Andy Griffin                   Nottingham
23rd Chris Allsopp                  Chase