Wow, what a fabulous day's racing. 15-20 knots of breeze at Leigh & Lowton for the 2013 season's opener, the New Year's Day Pursuit. Any hangovers were well and truly blown away in a tough day's racing with high quality entrants from around the North West, National and World Champions did battle with the up and coming youngster to create an intriguing scenario. The OOD set a great course around the flash and everyone was well stoked by the galley prior to launch time.
Three brave Optimists went at 12.40 with 2 hours 50 minutes to race ahead of them, with 10 Toppers next off of the 72-strong fleet. The Fireballs set off at a lick, quickly overhauling some of the fleet and the RS400 of Dave Exley & Nigel Hall looked a strong contender from the outset. Meanwhile the 29er of Curtis Mearns and Jamie Catchpole had a storming first lap to eat into the boats ahead. But Daniel Budden's Topper was the new kid on the block, putting in a great performance to keep a substantial lead going into the final stages.
It proved to be not quite enough in the end as the Fireball of Neil Marsden and Graham Nelson overhauled him in the final stages, while the 29er overtook 5 boats in the last few minutes to claim 3rd place - Jonny McGovern held on to preserve his 4th place.
With the junior winter regatta and the winter series starting up next weekend, we are looking forward to more of the same as the UK's biggest winter series kicks into gear!
Overall Results:
1st Fireball - Neil Marsden/Graham Nelson
2nd Topper - Daniel Budden
3rd 29er - Curtis Mearns/Jamie Catchpole
4th RS200 - Jonny McGovern/Sarah Williams
5th RS400 - Dave Exley/Nigel Hall
6th RS200 - Matt Mee/Alistair Norris
7th Fireball - Russ Cormack/Ali Cormack
