Lasers Race at the UKLA Inland Championship.

On the weekend of the 2/3^rd November some of the Laser fleet (William Whittaker (Rear Commodore Sail), Marcellus Pryor (Laser Fleet Captain) Willian Cooper (the yoof) went on a foray to Grafham Water to partake in the annual Laser Inlands Event.

The important thing to understand about these sorts of trips is that they’re a great weekend away with some sailing, we don’t really expect to challenge the leaders as we’re too old, unfit and lack the required talent.  That said they’re great weekends as you’re sailing in the presence of c.100 other Lasers with World Champions past, current and future!

Unfortunately due to the forecasted gales the organisers decided it prudent to cancel the Saturday which made it a one day event which was a shame, as much like the Fireballs found at DWSC the weekend prior, it was more than sailable on the Saturday afternoon and would have favoured us.  But as we were committed to hotels and entry fees we decided to watch the Rugby, have a spot of lunch and then head over.

So, we did some boat fettling before we loaded the boats, set off to Grafham, which has a strange looking pillar box/high rise block of a club house.  Once registered, we headed off to Huntingdon to prepare for the following days racing, with absent fleet members never far from our thoughts!

Obviously before such an event you must pre-hydrate and we all agreed the Wetherspoons represented excellent value…

After an early night (not) we awoke early to make sure we were fuelled for the long days racing as there were going to be 4 races, back to back, with a target time of 50mins per race, again it was back to Wetherspoons!  Race Briefing was at 08:45 and William lead the way with making sure he was fully hydrated…

We launched at about 09:20 into a very gentle breeze which got less throughout the day and returned to shore at about 16:15 by which time William was perhaps regretting his decision to drink 2ltrs of Coke before launching and spending nearly 7 hours on the water!

As predicted, we didn’t challenge any top tables, with not even a mention in the official write up and to save you scrolling we finished;  15^th for Will W,  20^th for Will C and 23^rd for Marcellus.  It’s all about taking part isn’t it?

For a more official version of events -see HERE!

 

A Laser fleet newsletter has been emailed out.  Here’s a couple of upcoming events to be aware of:

Laser Inlands

I know we as a Fleet aren’t known for travelling, indeed why would we when we have such good sailing at our home club!  However, last year a group of us went to the Inlands at Rutland and had an awesome weekend, we’ve probably bored you with our tales and will continue to as well, it was that good.

This year the event is being held at Grafham Water on the 2^nd & 3^rd November and again there’s a group of us going.  It’s more fun if there’s more people in it you recognise, there’s separate races for each Fleet (Standard, Radial & 4.7) so open to everyone and trust me when I say there’s all abilities there.

Why not come and join us, if you need help with logistics give me a shout.

Training Days

It’s been a while since we had a training day for the Fleet so I was thinking we could organise one for next summer if there was enough demand.  So just a quick show of hands please if you’d be interested so if there is the demand I can investigate costs.

 

Marcellus
Laser Fleet Captain
marcellus@livetheseason.com