Despite the biblical forecast as Storm Amy rolled inexorably across the country on Saturday, 26 Mirrors weren't deterred from entering their Inland Championship on 4th & 5th October at Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club.
This was a combined event with the Firefly class, who by all accounts descended upon the bar once the race team wisely cancelled racing on the Saturday. Four races were scheduled for the following day.
Sunday dawned still breezy but, with big dark isolated clouds rolling across the lake, occasionally the wind would drop to almost flat calm before the next squall line came in at 25kts. This combined with the restricted water (a result of the tide being out at Chew since August) forced the two fleets onto the same triangle sausage course and made consistency hard to find for all competitors. Fireflys being slightly bigger and slightly faster than mirrors can make very effective wind blockers!
No report and only a few photos. Mirrors raced in a 21 strong "slow" PY division (which included some quite speedy craft all the way up to a Blaze, PY=1030) which Phil & Lucy Smith won on countback from a (Laser) 2000. I have extracted the Mirror results from the full results table, which is why race winners and other placings are missing for some races.
Have you seen any of the above Trophies ? The following list of National Inland Championship Trophies are missing (i.e. they were not awarded in 2017, 2019, 2023, 2024 and efforts to track them down have failed so far).
Notice of Race now posted, entry's open via Web Collect using the link below.
Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club: Mirror & Firefly Inland Championships 2025
Where to begin?! What a long weekend! 53 boats at a Mirror Nationals, the first time since ages that there were more boats at the Nationals than the annual pilgrimage to the beach at Abersoch Mirror Week, really underlining the class resurgence in recent years.
A list of names reading more and more like a who's who of UK dinghy sailing with more than the odd World/European/National Championship littered amongst them, but this was all about the next generation - either sailing with their parents, siblings or friends, doing their first ever mirror event, or visiting from Australia - and having, without doubt, the most competitive fun you can have in sailing right now.
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