Canal sailors win Marine Industry Regatta
Bruntons leads Beacon Park as the leaders drift towards the finish line
MIR: This year’s Marine Industry Regatta was sailed in Sunsail’s new fleet of Sunsail F40 charter boats, with 11 boats coming to the line for a lazy day on the Solent with hardly a breath of wind all day.
Race officer Simon Grover was able to get only one race away after the fleet had drifted around close to Gilkicker Point for a couple of hours. That one race between Gilkicker and the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour started in a gentle breeze that drifted away as the leaders neared the finish line.
However, even with so little wind the same people seemed to get to the front, with both Adrian Miles of Bruntons Propellers and Alasdair Kirkpatrick from canal hire boat company Beacon Park Boats leading the fleet.
But it was Mr Kirkpatrick and his crew from the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal who took the win and the Boating Business Anniversary Trophy. Mr Miles brought the Bruntons boat in second and Tom Stevens brought the IPC boat in third.
The fleet took the opportunity to have lunch and wait for some more wind, but that was not to be. Mr Grover set a time limit of 14.45 for a reliable breeze, but it never arrived, so the fleet motored back to Port Solent.
The regatta had started on the Tuesday evening with the crews meeting in the bar of the Portsmouth Harbour Yacht Club where John Merricks Sailing Trust trustee Rod Carr accepted the regatta entrants’ donations of £1,100. Late donations from James Grazebrook and Simon Wood Power boosted the donation cheque to a nice £1250.00.
After that, everyone enjoyed a very good PHYC meal and spent the rest of the evening networking around the assembled crews.
Mr Stevens and his IPC crew also took the two extra prizes on offer. The first was the Slab of Tinnies offered by Saltwater for the best embarrassing moment on the water. This was adjudged to be the slight nudge up the rear end of an unidentified boat at the start.
And the second prize was Cooney Marine’s trophy for the best placed boat with the highest number of first time sailors on board. The IPC boat came in third and had three first timers on board. The Marine Industry Regatta introduced 18 new sailors to the water this year.
1 Beacon Park Boats
2 Bruntons Propellers
3 IPC Media
4 Tacktick
5 Boating Business
6 Garmin
7 Cooney Marine
8 Barton/Navimo joint boat
9 Mastervolt
10 Sunsail
11 Shirlaws
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