After
a winter of hard training, at their base at Alton Water, Stutton, near Ipswich,
the team won the opening round in the four-regatta contest for 2008, held at
Stanborough Lakes, Welwyn Garden City over the weekend.Held on the picturesque lake in Stanborough Park the event attracted one of the largest audiences for the sport with walkers and families stopping to watch the fun. RYA East windsurf coach and Team 15 (T-15) organiser Graham Colam commented: “We’ve never had so many of the general public at one of our events. The interest this event caused from the public was quiet a pleasant surprise to the centre staff who said that they had never had so many inquiries about windsurfing lessons.”
Conditions
were best described as benign, with winds of F1 and F2 on the Beaufort scale
holding steady directly on to the launching beach. The courses were set to give
cross-wind starts with a variation of beats, upwind legs and downwind blasts.
This opening event attracted 16 windsurfers from three teams, Alton Water
Wipeouts, Stanborough Stormers and Norwich Force 8th.
This
was the first time Stanborough had entered for the T-15 series. The
Ipswich-based eight-strong team showed their supremacy by taking first place in
four of the five classes, the 4.5m, the 5.5m, the 6.8m and the Big Techno 6.8m.
In the base 3.5 metre class Stanborough Stormer’s Chris Wright (12) used his
knowledge of the local waters to good effect and finished in top spot with Robin
Pearson (12), Norwich F8 in close second.In the next class up in rig size, the 4.5 metres Alton Water Wipeouts swept up all three top places with Matthew Barton (12) first, Jack Trollope (13) second and Zoe Deal (15) third (this will be Zoe’s last year in T-15, having reached the upper age limit for the competition).
The 5.5 metre class saw Alton’s Dean Taylor (13) win all four races, with team mate Chris Hartley (12) second and Norwich Force 8th’s Ryan Middleton (15) a close third.
The larger rigged 6.8 metre class was combined with the Big Techno 6.8 metre
hi-tech class, which saw ex- Zone Squad member Tom Bennett-Lloyd (15) of Norwich
Force 8th take the win, from his team mate Aaron Murphy (14) and Harriet White
of Alton in joint second place. Joanna Hartley (14) of Alton came third.A competitor to watch in the future is young Harriet Hudspith (12) of Seething near Norwich; “I’ve rarely seen someone with so much determination to give of their best. She’s a star in the making,” commented Graham. Harriet sails in the 4.5m class. Making his debut in windsurf racing local boy Chris Wright, who won the 3.5m class, commented after his T-15 baptism: “I’m going to stop kayaking and start windsurfing more and get all my friends to come too.”
Results:
3.5m class:
1 Chris Wright, Stanborough Stormers
2 Robin Pearson, Norwich Force 8th.
4.5m class:1 Matthew Barton, Alton
2 Jack Trollope, Alton
3 Zoe Deal, Alton
5.5m class:
1 Dean Taylor, Alton
2 Chris Hartley, Alton
3 Ryan Middleton, Norwich
6.6m and Techno 6.8m combined class:
1 Tom Bennett-Lloyd, Norwich Force 8
2 Aaron Murphy, Norwich Force 8
3 Harriett White, Alton.