The Alternative Merlin Rocket Inland Championships held at Cookham Reach Sailing Club September 29th 2007

After the disappointment of the cancellation of the real thing at Queen Mary – Cookham held the Alternative event on Saturday.
It may be some consolation to those sailors disappointed by the unavoidable turn of events to know that there was only a light and fitful North Easterly breeze. Although Cookham is down at river level there probably wouldn’t have been very much wind at Queen Mary either.
So, in the first start Roger and Jen Taylor sailing 3611 ‘Phantom Menace’ won the start and caught a lovely catspaw of wind to take them up the Reach to ‘A’ buoy about ¾ of a mile upstream. It wasn’t long however before the ace river team of Mike Stevens and Andy Douglas in their replica ‘Passing Cloud’ Luka 3560 overhauled them to take a convincing win. Mike’s other boat, which he had planed to sail this weekend, was already at Queen Mary but is now impounded by regulations; he doesn’t know when he can get it out!
By race two everyone had got themselves organized for an amazingly close start, about 6 boats were within a foot of the line at the hooter and only one was over. Again it Rog and Jen Taylor in pole spot who were able to call for room to tack and came out in front. Unfortunately Dave Fowler and Amy Garner were the ones just over – so by the time they had gone back it was hard for them to get back in the hunt. Chris Dodds and Pippa Taylor were sailing the ‘Smart Tart’ 3640 and they took the lead by the top mark. However Mike Stevens and Andy were not far behind and soon got through to take their second bullet of the day. Mark Barnes and Pete Nicholson who were sailing ‘Ticket To Ride’ 3689 had a real tactical needle match with Chris Dodds and Pippa Taylor, they overtook them on the last run but, just at the line, it was the Dodds/Taylor team who got second by less than a meter to secure their second place overall.
When the results were counted there was a tie for eighth place between our class chairman, Steve Watson sailing with James Hodgetts in 3379 and Bob Baker and his crew Penny, Bob and Penny got it on the tiebreak! 6th was the Fowler/Garner team, 5th Banes/Nichollson. In 4th place were Andy Clarke and his crew Torin from Shearwater SC in ‘Armed Forces’ 3442 who sailed consistently well all day. 3rd was Roger Taylor crewed by his elder daughter Jennie, just beaten by Jennie’s boyfriend Chris Dodds crewed by her sister Pippa. An invincible first was Mike Stevens and Andy Douglas.
It wasn’t the real inlands but at least some sailing was done and lots more Merlin sailors turned up in the evening to eat the copious amounts of food and drink the booze – one thing you can always rely on the Merlins to have a good party! Even when a foot and mouth scare has spoiled a big event.
From a personal point of view, if I put my Merlin hat on, I would like to thank Cookham for going out of their way to help the class in difficult circumstances - particularly Bob and Ruth Deacon who worked quietly all day – running the bar and helping organizing ‘stuff’.
And, if I put my Cookham hat on, to all the Merlin sailors who turned up to support us – what could have been a disastrous weekend (financially and emotionally) turned out to be pretty good fun all round. Thanks, I hope you enjoyed it as much as Jilly and I did.

Pat Blake

We must also give a huge thank you to Pat and Jill Blake for dealing with an extremely sticky situation and putting on some great (and pretty tricky) racing and a now expectedly excellent Cookham party (I'm currently in the second day of my hangover!). Thank you to everyone involved :)

Jen
I would like to second that.
One correction in Race 2 we were second for most of the race and had Chris/Pippa bighting at our heals for the bottom part of the run (no wind on our part!!!) and passing round the outside of us in the last 30 m. to the line. Tacked to early to force them over as they tacked better than us (well done).
Think Pete's brain is still trying to recover as our sail at Thorpe Bay in the B14 the next day was not exactly clockwork but we did port end the 49ers in 2 out of 3 joint starts which provided amusement to many. No chance on the river though as we would have been nailed.
Bye for now and welldone to Pat/Jilly and the gang

i was racing a moored river boat much of the time and lost. Still, a valiant defeat.  Still not sure which way the tide was going or when it turned to ebb.

Definitely a big thank you to the blakioooos for putting a brilliant bashon, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, also in day 2 of a killer hangover! I blame jilly!
x