|
| |
 Braassemermeer 1995
37 British sailors took part in the annual Easter Regatta at
Braassemermeer in Holland this year out of a total of 251 sailors. Conditions were
typically difficult with a variety of winds and very shifty conditions. Rule observance in
general was very poor with many minor collisions, rafting round marks, few 720 turns and
only a couple of protests in the whole event. It was quite an experience, particularly for
those British sailors who had not been to a regatta abroad before. (However the rule
observance in foreign regattas is not normally so poor). Our top sailor was David Hivey,
followed by Andrew Commander and Mark Campbell-James. It was a pleasure to watch the
overall winner, Lisa Westerhof from Holland, sail. She won 5 out of 6 races and often had
a lead of more than one 'leg'.
The format was slightly changed from previous years. For the first 5 races the fleet was
divided into 6 flights and each flight sailed against each other once. The results from
these 5 races were used to select 3 fleets. The top 80 went to the gold fleet, the next 80
to the silver fleet and the rest went to the bronze fleet. The fleets then sailed a final
race which added to the other 5 gave an overall result (with one discard). This is an
unusual system making the last race much harder for the gold fleet and easier for the
other 2 fleets. Generally speaking many of the gold fleet ended up using the last race as
their discard, and many of the bronze fleet obtained their best result in the last race.
Results. Gold Fleet: 6 British sailors were in this group. In the individual races David
Hivey was consistently seen in the top 12 in his races, Andrew Commander led the fleet for
much of race 3 finally finishing 3rd, Mark Richmond was 7th in race 1. In the final and
hardest race against the top 80 Mark Campbell-James was 31st. Overall: 25th David Hivey,
47th Andrew Commander, 51st Mark Campbell-James, 58th Nick Fuller, 63rd Mark Richmond,
71st Leigh McMillan.
Silver Fleet: 16 British sailors were in this group. Tim Boon made up for the
disappointment of just missing selection into the Gold Fleet by finishing 2nd in the last
race and winning this fleet overall. The last race produced some other good results with
Oliver Green 4th, Edward Dashfield 10th and Andrew Walsh 14th. Overall: 1st Tim Boon, 4th
Edward Dashfield, 12th Andrew Walsh, 13th Anthony Harvey, 14th Oliver Green, 20th Paul
Campbell-James, 24th Libby Greenhalgh, 28th Simon Grundy, 32nd Neil Baker, 42nd Alex
Cherry. Bronze Fleet: Gemma Fitzjohn-Sykes was delighted to finish a creditable 4th in the
last race with Ben Waters 9th.Overall: 6th Ben Waters, 8th Vicky Brown, 12th Robert
Holmes, 13th Gemma Fitzjohn-Sykes.
Jenny Campbell-James
|
