31st October and 1st November

In Spite of the forecast light winds a healthy 17 Osprey teams arrived at Rutland Water over the Halloween weekend for the final event of the of the Wilkinson Sword travellers series.

Racing got under way after a short delay with a fickle breeze from the South West. Richard and Mark Hartley headed out to the left from a heavily biased pin end line and picked up the first of some new breeze which lifted them to the Windward mark with a 10 boat length advantage from  Russ Wheeler and Boris Morris with Terry Curtis and Peter Greig coming through from the right to round in 3rd.

Curtis and Greig pulled through on the Reaches and started to work on the Hartleys lead. On the run wind filled in from either side of the course forcing Curtis to gybe and cover the fleet leaving Wheeler out on the right to pick up a puff and regain second place at the Leeward mark. Wisely the race team shortened the course as the wind died giving Hartley the win from Wheeler and Curtis.

Race 2 got underway in similar conditions to the first with Phil Meakins and Chris Dodd making good progress up the middle of the beat. The Curtis/Greig team managed to sneak an overlap at the top mark to round first and slowly carve out a lead which they held to the finish. National Champions Martin Cooney and Peter Frith pulled through to second place and were looking comfortable until Mick Greenland and Mark Mawhinny went hard right up the second beat picking up a massive lift which brought them from the middle of the pack into second at the windward mark, which they managed to hold to the finish closely followed by Cooney and Frith and the Hartleys coming in 4th.

With the wind dropping all the time Race 3 started with a one sided beat which Cooney and Frith read well to round with a comfortable lead only to be met at the windward mark by a rib signalling race abandoned.

With an earlier than expected end to the day boats were quickly packed away just in time to make to kick off of the Rugby World Cup final followed by Mark Hartleys presentation of the eagerly awaited plans for the Mk V Osprey. With tooling now under way the first prototype should be complete early in the new year.

Sunday dawned with thick mist and little likelihood of any wind. Racing was abandoned after an hours postponement leaving Curtis and Greig winners of the event and the Wilkinson Sword series.

Contender Inland Championship & Osprey Final Fling

Rutland SC

Osprey Fleet

Sailed: 2, Discards: 0, To count: 2, Entries: 18, Scoring system: Appendix A
RankBoat ClassSail NoClubHelmCrewRatingR1R2TotalNett
1st Osprey 1281 Weymouth SC Curtis, Tony Greig, Peter   3 1 4 4
2nd Osprey 1355 Blithfield SC  Hartley, Richard  Hartley, Mark   1 4 5 5
3rd Osprey 1290 Poole YC Cooney, Martin Frith, Peter   4 3 7 7
4th Osprey 1341 Isle of Sheppey SC Wheeler, Russell Boris   2 9 11 11
5th Osprey 1347 Warsash Meakin, Philip Dodd, Chris   6 5 11 11
6th Osprey 1291 Hayling Island SC Willis, Alex Willis, Nick   5 10 15 15
7th Osprey 1297 Marconi SC Taylor, Michael Willey, Jon   9 7 16 16
8th Osprey 1322 Isle of Sheppey SC Greenland, Mibk Mawhinny, Mark   16 2 18 18
9th Osprey 1331 Blithfield SC Caldswell, Gareth Gibbons, Jon   12 8 20 20
10th Osprey 1085 Oxford SC Odling, George Olding, Harry   15 6 21 21
11th Osprey 1296 Castle Cove SC Francis, Kevin Male, Phillip   7 14 21 21
12th Osprey 1343 Poole YC Marshall, Richard Edmunds, Andy   11 11 22 22
13th Osprey 1311 Blithfield SC Gould, Chris Broomhall, Nick   10 13 23 23
14th Osprey 1292 Teignmouth Corinthian Heather, Paul Osgood, Jonathan   8 17 25 25
15th Osprey 1329 Great Moor SC Blake, Roger Blake, Jamie   13 12 25 25
16th Osprey 1338 Isle of Sheppey SC Brown, Ken Butters, Chris   14 16 30 30
17th Osprey 1181 Ribble Cruising/Blithfield Crichton, William Batt, Jon   17 15 32 32

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