Taking place on 10&11 December below Heathrow’s flight path and a few stones throws from Windsor Castle, the second event in the GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series is also the first of the three events in the Winter Cat Series.
Among the multihull entries are Will Sunnucks, chairman of the UK Cat Racing Association who is stepping off his high-speed foiling Vampire to go Formula 18 sailing with crew Freddie White.
It was great to see GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series 2 fill up and a record entry with five days to go. There is now a waiting list operating.
In just its first three years, the Datchet Flyer has attracted some of the biggest names in dinghy racing. The 470 Olympic silver medallist Luke Patience won the inaugural event in 2013 steering a Fireball with Richard Anderton, a Fireball World Champion. The following year went to multi-champion and six-time Endeavour Trophy winner Nick Craig sailing a Merlin Rocket with Alan Roberts. And last year’s mix of strong and light winds saw Ann Jackson and Alan Skeens sail their Enterprise to victory.
Among the high profile entries so far this year are Fireball World Champions Christian Birrell and Vyv Townend, Ben & Roz McGrane in a Merlin Rocket, and Tom Jeffcoate and Si Forbes in a Scorpion.
This Series welcomes all kinds of dinghy across the spectrum, including three spectacular examples of the National 18 class, the three-person dinghy with one crew on trapeze.
Organised by Datchet Water in conjunction with SailRacer, the Datchet Flyer will use GPS tracking, enabling competitors and spectators to follow the action, and replay and rewind online at a later date.
Three races are scheduled for Saturday, with first warning signal not before 1200 hours. The intention is to run all boats on the same course with, depending upon numbers and class splits, two or three starts at 3 minute intervals. The Datchet Flyer concludes on Sunday with a pursuit race, which has been configured in such a way as to give the faster boats more time on the water. The fleet will be split into two, around the same course, with the slowest class and the mid-fleet class starting at the datum time. There will be two separate sets of fleet results, each with double point scoring.
Discounted online entry for the Datchet Flyer closes at 11.59pm on Monday 5 December, although you can still enter up to Saturday provided the 100-boat entry limit hasn’t been reached already.
Enter here: www.sailjuiceseries.com
THE STORY SO FAR…
After Round 1 of the GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series, the Fernhurst Books Draycote Dash won by Craig Williamson (Laser), the six special category leaderboards are starting to take shape, with some great prizes to be won from the supporting sponsors....
Allen Brothers Most Improved Award
After GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series Round 1, John and Sam Knight (4000) top the leaderboard, from Terry Curtis and Peter Greig (Osprey), with Chris and James Randell (RS200) completing the podium. This new award looks at those showing the most improvement in their trend lines of corrected times and GPS data (where available) referenced to the top 10 in each race.
Dinghy Rope Top Class
Based on the top three results from each class in every race. After GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series Round 1, the Laser class sit in top spot, and kicking off defence of their 2015/16 title with a perfect start, closely followed by the Solo and Merlin Rocket classes.
GUL Top Lady
The 2015/16 Series GUL Top Lady winner Eleanor Craig (Radial) has a narrow one point lead over 13 year old RS Feva sailor Kathryn Byne who with her crew Phoebe Jones led the Fernhurst Books Pursuit Race for over an hour and finished an excellent 5th against some very experienced sailors. Merlin sailor Caroline Croft sits in third place…
Harken Youth and Junior
After the extracted Youth and Junior results had been calculated, George Coles (Laser), had a near perfect score counting three firsts and a second, discarding a second, to top the Harken Youth and Junior rankings after GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series 1. Draycote member, 13 year old RS Feva sailor Kathryn Byne finished second and top Junior, with 2015/16 Series Junior Winner Eleanor Craig completing the podium for the Youth rankings.
SpeedSix Challenge
Day 1 winners saw Ally and Harry Jones (49er) hitting a sustained 12.67 kts on SailRacer GPS trackers and Greg Bartlett (Laser) with an adjusted speed of 9.69 kts (8.69 kts actual). Day 2 saw previous GPS Speed winners, Ralph and Sophie Singleton with 10.94 kts topping the Speed Six Speed Wall and the RS Aero 7 of Daniel Wigmore seeing an adjusted GPS speed of 9.10 kts (actual 8.54 kts). But once all the speeds from the five races had been adjusted, it was Andy Rice (Musto Skiff) who topped the SpeedSix Speed Wall. All winners took home Speed Six cans and goodies.
Trident Top Club
Based on the best three results for each club across every race, as in the 2015/16 GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series, Draycote SC lead after round 1 with a strong home performance. Not far behind are Northampton SC and Exe SC, who will both be looking to make gains at Datchet.
THE EVENTS
The following regattas constitute the GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series 2016/2017:
Draycote Dash, Draycote Water Sailing Club
Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 November 2016
Datchet Flyer, Datchet Water Sailing Club
Saturday 10 & Sunday 11 December 2016
Brass Monkey, Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club
Tuesday 27 December 2016
Grafham Grand Prix, Grafham Water Sailing Club
Monday 2 January 2017
Bloody Mary, Queen Mary Sailing Club
Saturday 7 January 2017
John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Rutland Sailing Club
Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 February 2017
Oxford Blue, Oxford Sailing Club
Saturday 18 February 2017