Sailing: Hollingworth Lake Sailing Club

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Hollingworth Lake

In a normal year, Hollingworth Lake Sailing Club would have been competing in the annual 24 hour race at Southport over this past weekend (19 & 20 September). So, instead of physically sailing on the marine lake, an online virtual race took place over the same period. A team of eight members ‘raced’ through the hours, in relay and secured a clear victory against 12 other teams.

Over the weekend too, Adam McGovern was also competing in a Virtual National Championship, run by the RYA, and finished 5th overall. So there are club members with excellent keyboard skills as well as on the water racing.

The strong easterly breeze gave challenging conditions for racing on Sunday (20 September). This gave the opportunity for the higher performance boats to compete strongly. In the first race, Chris Massey in his RS300 came in second, behind Daisy Fisher in a Topper, and two seconds ahead of Steve Crook and Sally Townend in a Merlin Rocket.

The second race was won by Steve Crook and the Solos came in close behind with Martin Brennan runner up ahead of Andy Carter. The racing was particularly close with nine boats finishing within a minute of handicap corrected time.

A long third race, where the younger sailors raced a lap less, again saw Daisy Fisher in the lead with other Topper sailors close behind, Hector Droungas second and Jasper Bramwell in fourth. Steve Crook held third place. Overall, it was a great day for Daisy Fisher with two race wins.