The light winds continued for Bassenthwaite Sailing Week on Monday and there was a single race held after lunch to allow competitors to have a break from sailing.

Local class winners in this race were Mike Fairlamb (Deanscales) / Eric Smith (Dalston) and Phil Smith now sailing with his young son Oliver as his crew. Graham Kirkpatrick (Crosscanonby) / Alan Smith (Harrington) secured an excellent second place in the Flying Fifteen fleet.

Tuesday morning saw the first damp conditions and it was also cold so the race officer made the race a short one. Results showed Mark Somerville / Joe Roberts (both Carlisle) had taken the win in their class.

The afternoon race was a Pursuit where all boats and their crews compete against each other in one combined fleet. The slowest boats start first and the faster ones up to 30 minutes later.

There were 83 boats competing and, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, Alan Jones (Lorton) crewed by Phil Hodgkins (Brigham) were the fourth crew to finish. This is Alan’s best result to date by a large margin.

Going back, it was a superb weekend to open the competition on Bassenthwaite Lake where 130 boats with crews from throughout the UK had gathered for the annual regatta.

A four race series started the nine day Regatta with its principal sponsor, Lakes Distillery. They were divided into ten fleets each starting two minutes behind the next.

Local crews didn’t appear at the top of the leader board in many of the fleets in this initial series.

However, the GP14’s were an exception with Paul and Vicky Bowmer (Keswick) putting in a superb performance to leave more regular winners of their class in the supporting positions.

Phil and Naomi Smith (ex Harrington) took the RS200 class with Robin and Erin Dawson (Cockermouth) in second place.

The most unexpected result came when Ant Woodyear (Braithwaite) crewed by Jo van Lechterop (Carlisle) took victory in the Slow Handicap fleet by the closest of margins.

Four boats in this large grouping finished on equal points but the local crew posted the best series of results from the individual races.