The goal of the Grand Prix (‘GP’) series is to encourage participation in more sailing events across the year by more members. The idea is that as well as the individual event prizes, participation in the series will also attract points towards an annual series. This will give an incentive to do as many events in the series as possible. |
We have just had another fantastic ‘Grand Prix’ weekend of sailing with the Coronation Cup on Saturday and Downriver day on Sunday.
The Grand Prix series is now nearing the end, with nine events completed and only two left. The sailing committee has decided to split the GP series into main and short course fleets. In the short course fleet Mirror sailor Julie Nelson continues to consolidate her commanding lead. Scoring in all events with an average score of 48 points she is now 153 points ahead of Tracy Haigh and can’t be caught in the remaining two events unless she does not finish in the Dyer Cup and is disqualified in the final (which will attract negative points). Third place is still closely fought however and Oliver Keeble, Victor Iszatt and Kiley Gooch have just five points between them.
In the main fleet Jonny Garlick took advantage of Jon Simpson’s failure to finish any Downriver races to vault past him into first place, despite scoring only 79 points over the weekend following a substantial amount of swimming on Sunday. With Mike Smith not competing and falling to fifth overall, Rob Carver was able to slide into third place overall scoring 86 points over the two days. Sprite crew Gill Callender is up two places into fourth; again benefitting from the absence of former Sprite leaders Malcolm and Nikki who are now tied in sixth with Mark Jared. Just one point behind is one of Gill’s helms, Steve Jared, who was one of the highest scorers over the weekend with 91 points. Wayfarer crew and class points leader Rob Haigh is just two points behind in tenth.
The other class points leaders are Charlie Stewart (Fireball), Mike Iszatt (Fast), Oliver Keeble (optimist), Daniel Hall (Topper), Esme Thomas (Feva), Jonny Garlick (Laser), Drac Norman (Solo), Gill Callendar (Sprite) and Julie Nelson (Mirrow).
Remember the GP series uses positive scoring with no discards, so the more events you can compete in the better you will do. The final GP weekend will be on the 10th and 11th October with the Dyer cup and the double points GP final.
To see the full results, click here:
Administrative note:
If your full name does not appear in the results (eg “Will”, “Mike S”, "?") can you please contact me (sailing-secretary@blackwatersailingclub.org.uk) so I can correct this. To prevent this happening, can you please write your full names on the sign on sheets, or it will be difficult to match up your scores across different events.