Hurricane 5.9SX TT circuit at Bala Catamaran Club
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The Hurricane TT was run in conjunction with the 37th annual Bala Catamaran Open Meeting. Round 3 of the Hurricane 5.9SX TT circuit took place over the May bank holiday weekend sponsored by Towergate Marine Insurance. Three travelling boats joined two local boats to contest this round, with one of the visitors fresh from their win at Carsington only a few weeks before.
Before the race, the visiting crews wondered how difficult could sailing at Bala could really be. All had been used to sailing on inland waters and Bala has been billed as the Lake Garda of the North, so surely this should be an easy event? What they hadn’t bargained for was the complete dominance of John Tuckwell and Chelsea Furber who from the first gun and first beat showed no mercy. Of the eight races sailed Tuckwell / Furber convincingly won the first six and had the event sewn up by Sunday, leaving the Monday free to sit back and watch the rest of the fleet battle it out for the remaining places.
Close racing was to be had between Pete Dimblad / Charlotte Pearson of Bala and Alex Burling / Colin Eddon of Island Sailing Club. After the eight races the two were on equal points and it boiled down to discards which meant that Burling / Eddon secured the second. The remaining boats from Datchet, Nathan Jones sailed with local sailors and finished 4th with Andy Bedford, Hurricane class chairman and Paul Mackay showing a masterclass in capsize techniques to finish 5th.
The lasagne and beer on the Friday night in addition to the barbeque and more beer on the Saturday night went down a storm wih the visitors, two of whom had never been to Bala.
The winners were presented with wine and sailing vouchers, provided by sponsors insurance4dinghies and Towergate Marine Insurance. The fleet now moves onto Rutland for the inaugural Inland Championships, where teams from the Stone and Starcross are expected to join Datchet teams and other travellers. It will be here that the big hitters of the fleet will make an appearance and those that had been putting in the hard miles during the winter will see where they stand in the fleet.