1976 Southern Area Championships at Brightlingsea

In light winds and bright sun, with an entry of 67 boats, the championship was fought out at Brightlingsea under the burgee of the Come Yacht Club (now in its 102nd year) over the weekend of 5th/6th June. The organisation was superb including radio links between shore, the Committee boat and rescue boats, each of which carried a doctor! Spectators were able to go out in club launches to follow the racing at close quarters, whilst those remaining on shore were kept in touch with events via the tannoy system. The club also had the co-operation of the river police keeping pleasure craft away from the race area.

Local Brightlingsea helmsman Peter Kyne in ‘Pee-Jay,’ very much at home on his own patch, won convincingly from Derek Beere in ‘Pinta’ in the first points race. The Sunday morning race was delayed by a general recall due to a wind shift during the gate start but when the fleet eventually got away, ‘Rosie’ sailed by Dave Sherwin from Leigh-on-Sea S.C. went into the lead and held it to win from ‘Topaz’ sailed by Harry Prangnell of Fishers Green S.C.

At the start of the final race, any one of four boats, ‘Pee-Jay,’ ‘Pinta,’ ‘Rosie,’ and ‘Topaz’ could take the overall honours. Peter Barnes, the defending champion, in ‘Medusa’ was first at the windward mark with a hundred yard lead over ‘Rosie’ which he steadily increased. By the last leg ‘Topaz’ had taken over 2nd place but had to win; ‘Rosie’ looked set to take the championship with his third placing and ‘Pee-Jay’ back at 9th. Then Roy Partridge in his new boat ‘Funderbird’ came from 7th place at the start of the beat to cross the line 2nd, pushing ‘Rosie’ to 4th and giving ‘Pee-Jay’ the title with 3 points.

Olympic helmsman, Reg White, helped present the prizes having spent a hard day signing autographs and selling raffle tickets for a Mirror dinghy
(strictly standard) in aid of a local charity, on the waterfront. A small perpetual trophy was presented for annual competition to the local junior
Mirror fleet by the Association to thank the club for their hard work.

Technical Note: The winning boat was Bell built and used a standard Holt main with a new hard ‘vectis’ inboard sheeted Holt jib. The multi colour spinnaker was Arun and the alloy mast was home made from a section of a Laser mast.

Prizes

The top 6 boats were awarded prizes as were the following

Editors Notes: According to Reflections No. 26 October 1976, page 11, it was at Bognor Regis, as the written report makes clear - it was at Brightlingsea.

 This article is from Reflections No. 26 October 1976, page 11 & 16. It has been captured by OCR, so typos & errors are possible.