Weymouth
Sailing
Club

Seventeen boats lined up for the Squib worlds in the 2012 Olympic sailing waters of Weymouth Bay.
Sixteen coaches, technical staff, managers and sailors from the New Zealand Olympic team helmed Weymouth Sailing Club members boats after their names were drawn out of the hat.

The seventeenth helm was WSC’s own paralympion hopeful Megan Pascoe.

Although the winds were light, the competition was intensive with plenty of argy-bargy and shouting at the start and around the marks, whilst the odd collision did not go unnoticed.

Commodore Mark Bugler was paired with a non-sailing RIB driver, whilst windsurfer Natalia Kosinska on Ghost rider could not understand why she could not pump the mainsail when the wind went soft. Jez Fanstone on Alderbarn failed in using his weight advantage to good effect and struggled in the middle of the fleet.

After one practice race, the world championship decider started in a breeze of 8 knots on a good old fashioned Olympic course, by the time the leading boats were on the sausage the breeze had dropped, some chose to go out to sea, other went inshore.

Going out paid off.

A thrilling finished awaited Peter Hopford and his race committee on Viking II as Peter Burling on Last Gasp and Andrew Murdoch on Inky Finger sprinted toward the line, cross tacking it looked good for Inky Finger, however there were scores to settle and inches from the line Andrew tacked onto starboard, Peter did not bear away even though he was on port, leaving Inky finger to duck his transom. Shouts of protest filled the air as Last gasp crossed the line and whilst they did their turns Inky Finger, went over in second place.

Meanwhile at the back of the fleet Mark Howard on the inappropriately named Dynamite crept in under the cover of darkness, when asked about his performance the following evening all he would say was “no comment.” Photographic evidence later proved that if he had actually concentrated on the job and looked where he was going his result might have been different.

At the prize giving afterwards, event organiser and Squib class captain Alan McDine presented joint first to Andrew and Peter in the sailor category whilst Nathan Handley walked away with a bottle of Californian wine for his efforts in leading the coaches round.

Already there is talk of this major sailing event overshadowing other international regattas booked for 2012 in the area as the competitors eagerly await the re-match.

The results were, and I hope I have got all the names right;