FRENSHAM Pond Sailing Club’s Cadet Open meeting was a complete contrast to the recent, becalmed ‘Frenzy’. The youngsters had a 29-knot north-easterly to contend with, but the more experienced sailors coped well and capsizes were kept to a minimum.
The small Cadet two-person racing dinghy was designed some 60 years ago and originally intended for home construction. The modern fibreglass versions have greatly improved masts and sails.
The meeting was divided into two fleets, but the event belonged in the end to rising star Megan Fergusson and her crew, Tom Stratton-Brown.
Team-work is essential and just to show how different things are these days, eight of the top ten helms on the day at Frensham were girls, even if they relied on brothers and other boys to crew.
-with-Division-One-champions-Tilford.jpeg?width=209&height=140&crop=209:145,smart&quality=75)
The fleet of 26 boats included seven visitors. To encourage the newer helms, a Bronze fleet had separate starts, removing some of the ‘big fleet angst’. Nine intrepid Bronze boats entered.
Race officer Keith Videlo set up the course with two races back-to- back before lunch and the same afterwards.
Keeping the boat flat and under control was the key to success and, in Race 1, good tactical choices on the beats enabled Amy and Ben Goult and Rosie Targett and Sophia Sfaxi to make progress through the fleet to finish second and third behind the dominant Megan Fergusson who sailed away to win by half a leg.
Megan, in a class of her own, again pulled well clear to win Race 2. Amy Goult and Rosie Targett were neck-and-neck with 20 metres to go, but Rosie capsized in a dramatic finale and Amy took second place ahead of Finbarr Wormwell and George Little.
After lunch, Megan suffered a rare capsize on the second beat, leaving the door open for Bea Harris to take Race 3, with Megan second and Amy third.
The competitors gathered their energy for the final race and Rebecca Videlo was first to the windward, only to lose out to Megan Fergusson’s superior low downwind sailing.
Megan sailed away from the chasing pack to record her third bullet of the meeting and secure the Frensham Sailing Club Cadet Open crown.
The Bronze races were won by Alana Corbett and Fergus Law, and Heather Brown and Ella Turnbull (2 wins). A special mention for Arthur Bird and Noah Williams who kept ‘Purple Haze’ going, despite numerous capsizes and ventures into the reeds.