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Racing
124 high calibre competitors assembled in Brightlingsea for the biennial International Mirror Class European Championships from 6th - 11th August. Many competitors took advantage of Brightlingsea Sailing Club's Pyefleet Week in the preceding seven days to fit in practice on the east coast chop and training sessions with the national coaches for the various Youth Squads. Boats sailed with the sponsorship logo of Oracle's Think.com and white jib numbers (in entry order) which proved to be incredibly useful and will be a regular feature of Mirror class championships in the future.
Day 1Practice Race. After a hectic but uneventful measuring on Saturday the championship got under way with a very short (beat, reach, run) practice race before going into the first of ten scoring races; all ten were needed for two discards. Practice race winners Andrew & Rachel Woodward were followed home by Melissa Heppell and Emma Barry of Brightlingsea and London University with a record 44 boats OCSed - a good test for the race team's video and spotting systems (they worked!).
Race 1 was sailed in a light breeze and after a judicious application of the black flag (the fleet lined up to perfection with just one OCS) the race got underway in an unusally northerly breeze which Chris and Catherine Forrestal led almost to the finish but after going early for the line (after the first triangle) they lost enough lead for UK Inland champions Tim and Peter Gray to claw them back and finally win on a sea flat enough to be their home lake at Staunton Harold. UK Youth Squadders Rob Greig-Gran and Jonathan Telford showed the impact of Peter Aitken's coaching with a solid third place.
Day 2Race 2. The Forrestals made no mistakes on Monday and won convincingly from local dad/son Craig and (haircut of the week) Mitchell Bond. Dad/son Tim and Peter Grey were third and with dad/son Howard and Josh Tear. a pattern seemed to be emerging... but there was a very long way to go yet. Race 2 also saw the marks being moved as the race progressed to keep what proved to be the pattern for the week - true beats, good reaches and square runs under conditions of constant change with an exhausted race team!
Race 3 saw the fleet overkeen to start and propelled over the line by the ebbing tide. They finally all got away under a black flag with 15 OCS.
Day 3Race 4 dawned feeble and unpromising. The race rteam held everyone back onshore for several postponements before the breeze arrrived as it almost always does at Brightlingsea. It got to be brisk and then brisker with the wind finally finding a bit of south.
Kingston and South Africa worlds squad member William Winter with new crew KarlBaumbach won the first race in some comfort from the Forrestals, Stephen Penney and Chris Penney in third and Toby Heppell and Abby Stodel in fourth. All seemed to have boatspeed to burn, especially the youth sailors.
Veteran Guy Wilkins, returning to the class with yet another dad/son combination, saw his gaff fall down literally metres from the line in a comfy top ten place but the fleet showed how good preparation is these days with almost no other incidents as the little boats crashed through the force five wind against tide chop. The Forrestals at this point were sitting on a stunning 2, 1, 3, 2 combination and the regatta looked won. How often has that been heard before at a championship...
Race 5 saw the fresh wind ease back as the tide turned to smooth the water. The fleet lined up for a textbook black flag-free start and the Forrestals, chased hard by girls Heppell and Barry, from youth squad pairs Heppell & Stodel and Greig-Gran & Telford opened up a huge lead over the fleet. Eventually, the wind deserted this leading bunch as they rounded the final leeward mark and rewarded the middle of the fleet with both lift and pressure turning the positions around. Dad/son combination Dave and Jake Gebhard won it from some unexpected and delighted teams - Forrestal scored a 16 whilst Paul Williamson and Helen Williamson who had averaged 42 points a race at this point looked pretty pleased with their 7th ("it's just like our pond at home!"). Suddenly both Gebhard and Tear looked like contenders as a thoughtful fleet sailed home.
The fleet returned home at around 7pm for a very spirited karaoke.
Day 4Race 6 The fourth day of racing was Gebhard's. The first race of the day started only after the black flag was invoked, the jib numbers and multiple spotting teams meant there was no hiding place even in the pack of this tight 124 boat fleet. Boosted by their second place the day before Brian Reilly and Ally Baker did it to dispel the doubters whilst Nick Meadow and Sam Trott added a useful 4th to two 3rds earlier in the week. The Forrestals were OCS and by this stage an awful lot of boats were starting to fancy their chances of a top five finish. The Gebhards though took the gun and had thus assembled a 1, 5, 4, 1, 1 sequence after their wobbly start with a 29 on day two.
Race 7 confirmed that it really was the Gebhard's day and they slotted in another bullet. The Tears were 2nd, the Penneys 3rd. Andrew Greer and Milton Redmond suddenly remembered why they'd gone fast on the Monday and popped in a useful 4th, Matthew Burge and Jez Nickolls did their score no end of good with a 6th to go with their morning's 5th - a pretty good day's work for the Irish team spoiled only by the Forrestal's 16th as they suffered a mid-week wobble.
Day 5Race 8 saw the wind ficckle and elusive. The race team elected to place the course in the one place where there was wind on the east Coast, at the confluence of the Blackwater and Colne estuaries where the tides meet at a tricky right angle. Race 8 again showed the strength in depth of this fierely competitive fleet as Gebhard who had been exploring nthe edges on the beats most of the week explored the wrong edge and slumped to a 38th. Since he already had a 29th on his card he was suddenly living very dangerously. Greer and Redmond won it from Meadow and Trott whilst Heppell and Barry took 3rd to put a lot of space between them and the next women overall.
Race 9 Suddenly the Tears looked like they could win it completing a sequence with this race of 1, 11, 2, 4, 3 in this tactically interesting race. Leaders scampered across to the shallow water off Mersea Island but were reluctant to break for the line in what was clearly going to be a drag race. The wind shifted and the poor old course team moved more marks and tried (successfully) to outguess the shifts. In the end all the leaderes under estimated the substantial sideways shove they would get from the Blackwater scouring into the Colne mouth and the early breakers took places on the final beat which even saw a few spinnakers as the win added to the overstand by freeing about 10 degree. The Bonds, with dad Craig finally clearing his mind from the complexities of hosting a championship showed their speed from earlier in the week and took second but gebhard recovered a sense of direction with a convincing win.
Each evening the aggregate winners of the two races won day prizes and for day 5 all three pairs, Greer and Redmond, the Tears, Heppell and Barry had collected just 7 points total from the two races. It's getting very tight indeed at the top of the Mirror fleet.
Day 6Race 10 and again the fleet waited on-shore for wind. In an interesting finish to the event the Gebhards looked favourites to win but the Tears led into the final race and the Forristals had tremendous boat speed. Anything could happen. In the event the wind arrived with some sea breeze in it and all the conenders were there or there abouts: the Gebhards won to vast cheers from their "mother ship" and the UK spectators, the Forristals came in second to clinch 3rd overall and the Youth title, the Tears slipped back to 21st but had already done enough for second overall, the Penneys were 3rd in the race for 5th overall, girls Heppell and Barry took 4th for 9th overall ahead of top UK youthsToby Heppell and Abby Stodel who were discarding a 15th after a very consistent series indeed that left them 6th overall and 2nd youths overall.
The junior event was decided on the first race of each day and Top juniors were finally Niki and Christian Birrell who had pulled back a very wobbly early start to their week. Interestingly in the overall Europeans top juniors were Josh and Judi Gebhard. For both these teams to finish in the top 40 was very encouraging for future UK Youth teams.
Boats and sailors
There were many very well prepared boats at this championship and even more well prepared sailors. The plethora of local Brightlingsea olympic sailors, world and european champions on the water assisting the event were astonished by the quality of sailing way back down into the fleet and it speaks volumnes for the Mirrors great strength - its mixedd age regime. The roll of parents sailing with very young crews reads like a dynasty of UK sailing, these fast children then sail with other Juniors, struggling in the tough cometition before as Youths they really get results but still have to be the tough adults. Finally as "big" Youths they sail again with little Juniors as they pass on from their parents and a succession of really high standards is vouchsafed.Sails at the top were dominated by the Goodwins in numbers but Trident sails, having finally moved their sheeting further inboard, had two out of the top ten including the champion whose sails were cut deeper that the usual Trident cut.
Home built or finished wood boats dominate and at the top of the fleet proven fast boats change hands for enough money to ensure that in this International Class at least the curse of depreciation does not scar parental wallets! The number of coach boats on the water bore testament to the fact that in several countries the class is seen as a key route to future Olympic success and the sailing on display confirmed that the route seems to be working.