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The

Association of Model Barge Owners

(AMBO)

Incorporating

The Model Thames Sailing Barge Championships

Barge Match Results

MTSBC Finals - Mote Park, Maidstone 28^th September 2008

And so after the trials and tribulations of the sunny, wet, windy, windless summer season we eventually come to the Championship Finals – held at Mote Park, Maidstone and hosted by the Cygnets MBC.

On arrival we were greeted by Peter Clayton (Chairman of Cygnets) who had provided a couple of tables and a PA system for our use and soon the trophies to be awarded were laid out, frequency control sorted by Harvey Bittle and the skippers called together for a briefing by the OOD/starter Colin Sharp.

(Tony Lench arrived at about this point – a bit flustered and his usual jovial self – having got lost trying to find the park entrance [again!!], this being about his fourth visit and he has never failed to get lost yet)

After Tony had said hello to anyone in sight we once again settled to listen to Colin and basically the orders were 1 lap or 30 mins, a triangular course clockwise and have a good day.

(You will notice that I haven’t mentioned the weather conditions yet! Well it was sunny and virtually windless – definitely less than the 5mph on the BBC news forecast and closer to the 2mph predicted by Harvey. And this was the reason for the short course 1 lap dash to enable sufficient ‘races’ for the results to be sorted out.)

There were 27 boat / skipper combinations taking part (20 Skippers) and 5 non championship combinations making up the racing fleets plus numerous wives / partners and hangers on from the host Club littering the lakeside.

And at 10.15 Colin called the Bowsprit skippers to order and with a 1 minute warning set the boats off on the first drift around of the day and thus slowly they headed towards buoys 1 and 2 except for (I think) Colin Ross whose barge decided that the course was boring and headed towards the north east and the centre of the very large lake we had a small part of. The rescue boat was sent out and eventually caught up with it (the electric outboards battery was going a bit flat) and brought it home. Apparently he (Colin) was having trouble with his 40Mhz radio and in subsequent races used 27Mhz.

Peter White’s CRUSADER was seemingly beyond B2 (twice) but drifted back inside it before rounding correctly. And he was not the only one with B2 drifting problems – there was your reporters SIRDAR and at least a couple of others – and it wasn’t eyesight/distance related either.

At the 30 minute point John Jeffery was the only one who had finished a lap and the result was taken from positions on the water.

Almost immediately the Staysails were called up and ‘raced’ for their allotted 30 minutes and so it continued for the rest of the forenoon with the other classes. In fact the most closely contested race was in Coastal with only Dave Watts taking part!

A lunch break was taken giving any non Championship skippers a chance to have time on the water (although Cyril, Mikey, Ray and Peter Mortimer did take part in the other races as ‘non competitors’.)

After lunch the wind speed increased to about 1 mph with the occasional gust of 2 -3 mph lasting for 5 seconds or so to raise the skippers spirits and shake the wrinkles out of the sails.

As last year the finals were serenaded by Caillyn Mackenzie on the hill behind the boat park with tunes on the bagpipes. This year though his other half Seannoo was working and he wasn’t accompanied by her playing on the chanter.

Colin, aided by Mikey - who was of a mind to disqualify any one who wasn’t his grandfather (Cyril) or Grandmother (Di) – and Harvey keeping track of race positions, kept the races coming at a rapid rate and let everyone know the positions etc by using the PA system.

In the conditions a bit of give and take was allowed by the OOD with drifting onto and hitting buoys being decided as an unavoidable error requiring no 360° turn (except for your reporter in the last Bowsprit race when it was insisted on or be disqualified by Mikey – not that it mattered as I was last anyway but did the penalty in the best wind I could find). Actually the racing was undertaken in a good spirit accepting the conditions and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves.

Staysail race 3 showed that it had been a hard days racing as Tony Lench let ELIZABETH off without switching on the receiver battery and requiring ‘collecting’ by the rescue boat and Colin Barrett had to re-attach the stem post with electricians sticky insulating tape – although it didn’t stay in place for long. Actually this ‘repair’ gave him his best result of the day and it was suggested he keep it like that for next year!

Probably some of the most exciting races were for the Ladies Championship and they were all closely contested with the last race being required to sort out the result. Hopefully next year there will be enough Ladies at each event to have their own class racing as they found it better to race without the more experienced male skippers getting in the way.

All in all though it was a very pleasant days racing with plenty of passing members of the public to speak to and we may have collected a couple more members in the process.

Anyway – thanks to all the skippers who turned up and to the members of the Cygnets Club who set out the course and PA system, manned the dinghy and allowed us the use of their water.

Also thanks to Colin Sharp as OOD, Harvey Bittle as Scorer and Mikey as PA controller.

And so to……………….

Results

Bowsprit R1 R2 R3

1. John Jeffery Peter White Peter White

2. Peter White John Jeffery John Jeffery

3. Dennis Freeman Dennis Freeman Colin Barrett

4. Peter Mortimer Peter Mortimer Dennis Freeman

5. Richard Chesney Richard Chesney Peter Mortimer

6. Colin Barrett Colin Barrett Richard Chesney

Ret. Colin Ross Colin Ross

Staysail R1 R2 R3

1. David Watts David Watts Hans van Leeuwen

2. Bill Sutherland Colin Barrett Colin Barrett

3. John Jeffery Alan Millman Andrew watts

4. Tony Lench Bill Sutherland Tony lench

5. Alan Millman Tony Lench John Jeffery

6. Colin Barrett John Jeffery Bill Sutherland

7. Andrew Watts Andrew Watts David Watts

8. Hans van Leeuwen Hans van Leeuwen Alan Millman

Non Championship Staysail Cyril Pellett 9/8/7

30” R1 R2 R3

1. Mike Jones Mike Jones Mike Jones

2. Cyril Pellett Cyril Pellett Dennis Freeman

3. Dennis Freeman Dennis Freeman Cyril Pellett

4. Bill Sutherland Bill Sutherland Bill Sutherland

Non Championship 30” Peter Mortimer 3/2/2

Ray Foreman Retired

Coastal R1 R2

1. David Watts David Watts

Ladies R1 R2 R3

1. Beryl Watts Beryl Watts Jo Chesney

2. Maggie Shaw Di Pellett Beryl Watts

3. Jo Chesney Jo Chesney Maggie Shaw

4. Di Pellett Maggie Shaw Di Pellett

5. Mikey Pellett Mikey Pellett Mikey Pellett

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The above results have been adjusted for Championship points with the non Championship contenders race results removed (and shown with the appropriate skipper at the end of the listing).

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Championship Winners

Bowsprit Peter White CRUSADER

Staysail David Watts WHIPPET

30” Mike Jones

Coastal David Watts CAMBRIA

Ladies Beryl Watts

Concours d’elegance (John Nicholls Memorial Trophy)

REVIVAL Bill Sutherland

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More photographs of the event can be seen on the Cygnets MBC website www.cygnetsmbc.co.uk as well as those from John Jeffery shown below.

David Watts – Staysail Champion