The final event of the Crewsaver UK Series, held last weekend (21-22 September) at Hayling Island SC, provided close and exciting racing for the 52 Laser 4000s that entered.

After a poor English turnout at the previous event at Dalgety Bay near Edinburgh, the upper hand in the overall series points lay with the Scottish teams who travelled the length of the country to clinch their advantage. Iain and Hamish Calder had only to stop Andy Shorrock from finishing in the top three to secure overall series victory.

Meanwhile Ronnie Millar and Pete Marshall, sailing MGT, had the harder task of sailing Andy Palmer-Felgate and Jon Modral of Team Control out of the top four, while simultaneously preventing Luke McEwen and Emma Evans in Printware from finishing in fifth place or better. To add to the interest of these little battles, the gusty offshore breeze and swirling tide in Hayling Bay conspired to make the racing a game of snakes and ladders.

Plenty of sunshine helped to make up for the race lost due to lack of wind on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday the race team managed to squeeze in an extra race to make up the full six results.

Only two boats managed to make sense of these tricky conditions and score consistently good results. Pete Barton and Simon Knatchbull, in another of the four Team Control boats, won the first race and carried on to take the event overall. Doug and Hilary Baker in Preferred IT, sailing together for the first time since Hilary broke her ankle in the spring, showed a great return to form by winning half of the races, with only a ninth in the first race to deny them first place. Only four points separated the third and seventh placed teams overall. Team Control’s Mark Richards and Susanna Bickford had no idea they had sailed well enough to claim third place, so sailed home after a poor start in the last race, nearly undoing the work that the Calders had put in to ensure Andy Shorrock and Pippa Wheeler didn’t finish on the podium. Next came Printware, again only a point ahead of Palmer-Felgate and Modral, who in turn beat Team Control’s fourth boat, sailed by Ian and Natalie Gotts, by just one point.

Overall Results

1st Pete Barton and Simon Knatchbull (Team Control) 11pts

2nd Doug and Hilary Baker (Preferred IT) 14pts

3rd Mark Richards and Susanna Bickford (Team Control) 31pts

4th Andrew Shorrock and Pippa Wheeler 32pts

5th Luke McEwen and Emma Evans (Printware) 33pts

6th Andy Palmer-Felgate and Jon Modral (Team Control) 34pts

7th Ian and Natalie Gotts (Team Control) 35pts

8th Jason Kirk and Scott Dawson (Frijj) 42pts

9th Iain and Hamish Calder 46pts

10th Penny Mountford and Russ Clark 52pts