The Footy Championship is being held in Gosport on Sun 29 July. For details see www.gosportmybc.org.uk . Please bear in mind that the emphasis is very much on FUN! Do not be put off by nasty, serious words like ‘race’ and ‘championship’. The aim is that everyone from toddlers (well almost) to wrinklies like me should have a really good day out – and that everyone should want to come back next year. As well as ordinary radio sailing there will be free sailing events, junior prizes, a concours d’élégance for the most beautifully built boat, ……
I hope you all have a great day with fair winds Angus and Co.
Get some sailing in!.. I am looking forward to the report and loads of photos.
Graham
Thanks! Just hope the rain holds off.
A.
Congrats to Bill Letten,the first ever UK Footy champion!!
Sailing a Micron design moulded by Highlander yachts.
2nd was Roger Stollery,Ant design,
3rd Richard Alford,Footloose
4th John Cadenhead sailing another Micron.
I am very pleased to see John the founder of Footy sailing at Southwater get into the top results.
3 of the top 4 sail from the Southwater club showing that time on the water does indeed pay,these guys have been racing Footys since I first designed and built "BobAbout " in 2002.
Well done everyone.
I am sure Angus will be along with the official report later…
Can’t wait for the full report! Congratulations to all.
Bill
For the pictures see http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/n138/angusrichardson/Gosport/
Well it went like a dream. The weather was perfect: lightish ‘Footy’ winds in the morning increasing to B-rig conditions for the tippier yachts in the afternoon.
31 boats turned up and had one ‘fun’ race together (actually to get super pictures – not yet available – of the biggest Footy start ever). After that, the fleet was divided into heats.
The nicest thing probably was that, despite the huge difference in experience between the top and bottom of the fleet, there was no acrimony: the experienced helped the inexperienced and the inexperienced were not intimidated. As far as one can tell, everyone had a super day out. For me, in particular, it was very gratifying to have names on the register and voices at the end of the phone line turn into real people and real boats – and what is more, nice people and nice boats.
That’s the important bit – the really important bit. A wheelchair is not the best base for an Investigative Roving Reporter, so what follows is nothing more than a private subjective view.
Non-sensation: measurement went smoothly – and it is believed that this was accomplished without binding OR trussing Roger Stollery, architect of the rule. This has to bode well for the future.
So – sensation – we had two (permanent) sinkings. Charles Smith’s brand new boat sank on the first run of the fun race. Charles has to be one of the most positively minded people I have ever met: rather than wiping tears from his eyes, his first reaction was to ask ‘I’ve got another one on the stocks. Shall I just keep the same sail number?’
In the afternoon, Bill Green’s Lajabless was lost with all servos when she sailed herself under. Bill (basically an A Class and 6 Metre man) is now in the market for a new hull.
The fleet was tremendously diverse, ranging from John Cadenhead’s original Bobabout GBR 1, built by him and Brett McCormack in New Zealand to some very mean and very new machines, some of which actually worked. Others quickly retired from the scene. What was tremendously gratifying was the amount of home design and construction. Anyone who saw the fleet on Sunday would entirely give up any idea of trying to transform Footys into a one design. For better or worse, they are now the most open development class in Britain. Boats include Pete Nicholls Zero Carbon Footprint, which was anything but zero carbon, Phillip Wiles very impressive vacuum formed SWIFT 5 design – complete with sail winch – my own carbon/depron 2-masted Akela, and two of Roger Stollery’s new Ant design. This is still built from Corex board taped together, but it is double chined and quite evidently designed more with performance and less with ease of construction in mind. Having said that, Roger’s nest of lent-out Bugs were not doing badly either.
Good boats or bad boats – what counted at the end of the day was preparation and skill. On the odd occasions when Akela managed to break through these barriers, she was devastatingly fast, but very properly ended up somewhere round the bottom of the fleet. It says a lot that boats from Southwater featured highly in the results. Under the guise of wrinkly dabblers they have some very shrewd operators among their number – and furthermore are currently the only club in Britain to have regular Footy racing with a decent sized fleet. Hopefully there will be more competition for them next year.
And the nicest thing? Ray Baxter’s Footy Thames barge, topsail, mizzen and all. This did not actually race, which was a pity since it sailed astonishingly well. Its only vice was its dinghy, hung in davits on its starboard quarter. On port tack this tended to fill, which made going about seriously problematic!
Yes, fun was had by all and the class has taken another step towards maturity.
The results were:
Position Skipper Sail # Club/City Hull MYA No. Score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
25
22
24
0
11 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26
1 W L Letten 78 Hove Lagoon Micron 14.0 1.0 4.0 6.0 3.0 3.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.0
2 Roger Stollery 97 Guildford Ant 15.0 1.0 2.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 1.0 4.0
3 Richard Alford 3 S’water Dabblers Footloose 20.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 6.0 2.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 3.0 2.0
4 John Cadenhead 88 S’water Dabblers Micron 39.0 2.0 5.0 4.0 4.0 2.0 6.0 6.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 18.0
5 Chris Treagust 11 Gosport 42.0 1.0 3.0 9.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 7.0 5.0
6 Phillip Wiles 101 Poole Swift 5 44.0 3.0 6.0 3.0 7.0 11.0 9.0 2.0 7.0 4.0 14.0 3.0
7 Chris Durant 91 Gosport Ant 56.0 7.0 14.0 26.0 14.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.0 7.0 5.0 8.0
8 C J Vice 67 Bug 3 68.0 4.0 17.0 10.0 12.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 9.0 9.0 6.0 6.0
9 Nick Burden 79 S’water Dabblers Buttercup 2 73.0 3.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 9.0 11.0 10.0 11.0 10.0 8.0 9.0
10 John Birine 25 Gloucester Shazam 80.0 4.0 11.0 7.0 8.0 8.0 13.0 8.0 13.0 14.0 10.0 11.0
11 Pete Nicholls 102 Gosport Zero Carbon F’print 98.0 11.0 8.0 13.0 18.0 10.0 14.0 14.0 10.0 11.0 9.0 12.0
12 Bill Green 45 Bournville Lajabless 102.0 6.0 14.0 11.0 10.0 13.0 10.0 19.0 5.0 14.0 26.0 26.0
13 Hayley Vice 17 Bug 102.0 5.0 15.0 14.0 11.0 16.0 15.0 11.0 14.0 8.0 14.0 10.0
14 Daniel Forsdyke 2 S’water Dabblers Bobabout 107.0 6.0 16.0 12.0 15.0 15.0 7.0 12.0 15.0 12.0 14.0 14.0
15 Derek Morland 100 Gosport Bootstrap 115.0 2.0 9.0 5.0 6.0 12.0 12.0 24.0 23.0 23.0 23.0 26.0
16 Lyndseyann Tose 44 S’water Dabblers Bobabout 120.0 5.0 14.0 16.0 14.0 14.0 17.0 14.0 23.0 16.0 14.0 13.0
17 Mark Mortimore 77 Guildford 507 142.0 11.0 22.0 26.0 22.0 18.0 18.0 17.0 12.0 23.0 15.0 7.0
18 R Baxter 42 Hove Lagoon One-off 144.0 3.0 10.0 18.0 16.0 20.0 24.0 18.0 18.0 23.0 23.0 18.0
19 Mike Nicols 1 Gosport Bobabout 151.0 5.0 18.0 15.0 19.0 24.0 16.0 15.0 16.0 23.0 26.0 26.0
20 Gary Sanderson 13 Razor 156.0 11.0 28.0 19.0 20.0 19.0 20.0 16.0 20.0 15.0 16.0 26.0
21 Jim Garner 14 S’water Dabblers Bobabout 172.0 11.0 28.0 17.0 21.0 22.0 24.0 24.0 19.0 17.0 23.0 18.0
22 Angus Richardson (1) 71 Colwyn Bay Akela 173.0 11.0 28.0 20.0 26.0 21.0 19.0 24.0 17.0 18.0 17.0 26.0
23 Mike Hyland 86 Gosport ??? 183.0 4.0 19.0 26.0 17.0 17.0 24.0 24.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0
24 James Morland 96 Gosport Stumpy 212.0 8.0 22.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0
25 John Mc Assey 52 Colwyn Bay Kittiwake 215.0 7.0 28.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0 26.0
WOW!!! looks like you guys had a blast! come on fellow yanks! lets get a party going!:zbeer::devil3:
Congratulations on a great regatta. Sorry to hear about the sinkings.
You may lose that ogre reputation if you keep getting photographed looking positively happy. The sight of that Footy fleet is absolutely inspiring. And I guess we’ll have to see what we can do to gather a US fleet to match. Bill is hosting a regatta Aug 26th and I have one Oct 14th.
Again congratulations, fun times.
remind me… where is bill’s regatta?
According to the AMYA regatta page, Gilford, NH.
See http://www.modelyacht.org/regattaschedule/2007/race_cl.html#footy
I thought I was going until my daughter’s kindergarten schedule nixed it. Drat.
interesting… NH… i might be able to make that! [cogs start turning in head]:devil3:
oops, we’ve sorta jacked angus’ thread… maybe we should move this to a new thread? i dunno.
I can’t tell you how much I was itching to be in that fleet Angus! Oh to be back in blighty where everything is within reach, this big USA thing is getting me down!
Great photos Angus and an entertaining and informative report. What a magnificent array of boats and ideas, individuality on display, I love it. There can be few more colourful fleets out there than the Footys presented on Sunday. Be proud mate for being a major part of making that happen, I agree with John… what ogre?
Well done :zbeer:
Graham
I too am sorry I missed the event,but $3500 for one days racing is just a little steep even for this die hard Footy sailor!
Nevermind one day perhaps…pretty pleased that 3 of the top 5 boats are from my pen though!
well done to everyone who sailed and those who were part of the organisation.
Congrats on a great event. I would have loved to have been there. Maybe next year!
It was nice to put some faces to names as well as seeing so many enjoying a good day’s sailing.