Southport Junior 12 hr Race 25/6/2011

Strong westerly winds at the start of this race at 8 am greeted the 32 teams assembled on the start line for this nationally famous event. Fidlers Ferry Sailing Club had 8 young people in their team to take on the might of some of the regions biggest clubs, never ever finishing in the top twenty after 3 years of competing in this event.

FFSC made a good start and after 2 hours of sailing held 9^th position but then due very gusty conditions sustained boat damage which require a 20 minute repair before re-entering the race by this time dropping 5 positions to 14^th. Not disheartened the youngsters work really hard to get back time lost and by 1 pm had pulled back those lost positions and were lying 8^th.

 A cat and mouse battle then pursued with Chester & Bolton Sailing club teams, which resulted in some really exciting sailing being produced by the FFSC youngsters. 

FFSC with the smallest squad in this competition, and at a time in the race when the wind conditions increased in strength, some of the lighter weighted crew found difficulty in holding the boat up from capsize. As a result they had to reduce their speed and this allowed the heavier crews of Bolton & Chester to gain the advantage for a while.

By 4pm the team were still in contention for a top ten finish lapping the course in around 12 minutes, and still no let up in the on going battle, the crew changes on the go were going great with FFSC completing some very fast crew changes and as a result moved back into the top ten positions with still more to do to improve on that position.

 By 6pm and moving into the last 2 hours of the competition the tenth position was being maintained until a bag gust capsized the FFSC boat and again valuable positions were lost has the team dropped to 14^th within a matter of 2 minutes, but again the FFSC threw caution to the wind in their bid to claw bad lost time and as the final canon sounded at 8pm their overall position was still not clear, but after a long and tense wait, the final positions came up on the monitors showing FFSC in 11^th position overall, a most valiant effort by all those exhausted and very tired youngster from Warrington who against all the odds finished in their highest ever position in this competition.       

  
Congratulations to South Staffordshire on winning this event.

This result would not have been achieved without the tireless work of Adrian Dodd the team manager and the 50 plus supporters who were there from start to finish, a wonderful and memorable day for everyone taking part.

Colin Howard, Sailing Sec

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