At the halfway stage of the SailJuice Global Warm-Up 2011, Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis have sailed their Merlin Rocket to the top of the leaderboard after notching up a useful 9th place from 238 entries in this weekend's Sailboats.co.uk Bloody Mary pursuit race.
Biggs and Hollis had won their handicap division at the previous weekend's Grafham Grand Prix and they have been the most consistent across the two events by some way. Under the series scoring system devised by SailRacer.co.uk, all results are referenced against the largest single fleet of all four events in the SailJuice series. Thus far it is the Bloody Mary fleet which becomes the benchmark score, meaning that those who performed well in the variable conditions at Queen Mary Sailing Club on Saturday have put some useful points in the bank.
Winners of the Bloody Mary were Roger Gilbert and Ben McGrane, the national champions who sailed their International 14 into the lead with 20 minutes of the race still to run. It was a dominant performance which puts them in 17th overall after two events, even though they didn't show up at Grafham. With one discard in the Series, there will be a good deal more reshuffling of the pack once the Steve Nicholson Trophy and John Merricks Tiger Trophy have taken place just under a month from now.
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A second place at the Bloody Mary puts Fireball World Champions Chips Howarth and Vyv Townend in 3rd overall, behind the Musto Skiff of Andrew Peake who is now 2nd in the SailJuice series after finishing 20th at Queen Mary.
Eight different classes feature in the current top 10 standings, with only the Merlin Rocket and Musto Skiff appearing twice. It was notable how mixed the top finishers were at the Bloody Mary, with Queen Mary Sailing Club's careful reappraisal of the standard RYA PY numbers paying dividends. With a Graduate and an International Moth both finishing in the top 10, along with a variety of other hiking and trapeze boats, Queen Mary's analysis of past finish data from previous Bloody Marys appears to be opening up the field to more and more contenders.
Online entry to the Series has been extended up to 28 January, the eve of the third event, the Steve Nicholson Trophy. So if you have competed in the Grafham Grand Prix and/or the Bloody Mary, then make sure you've signed to the SailJuice Global Warm-Up too. Online entry on SailRacer.co.uk costs nothing, and there are hundreds of pounds of prizes to be won from the Series sponsors.
With the final prize-giving for the series set to take place at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show at Alexandra Palace on the weekend of 5/6 March 2011, there are some great prizes being provided by: Rooster Sailing, Hyde Sails, Holt, RS Sailing, Laser Performance, YachtsandYachting.com and SailJuice.com
Enter the Series here: www.sailracer.org/globalwarmup
Provisional Top 10 Standings after two events
Pos Class HELM POINTS
1 Merlin Rocket Matt Biggs 16.5
2 Musto Skiff Andrew Peake 26.72
3 Fireball Chips Howarth 39.5
4 Solo Michael Sims 74.67
5 Scorpion Peter Gray 80.14
6 29er Callum Ellis 81.52
7 Phantom Andrew Wilde 83.2
8 RS 200 Steve Restall 100
9 Merlin Rocket Paul Hollis 104
10 Musto Skiff Ian Martin 107.45
For full results: www.sailracer.org/globalwarmup
Andrew Peake has closed the gap on series leaders in the SailJuice Global Warm-Up 2011, the Merlin Rocket of Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis. Peake scored two bullets in the asymmetric division at the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy at Northampton Sailing Club last Saturday. Two 3rd places gave Biggs and Hollis 4th overall in the doublehanders fleet, to add to their other consistent scores from the Grafham Grand Prix and Bloody Mary.
Last year Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis won the Doublehanded division at the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy, and this year the Merlin Rocket sailors also find themselves at the top of the series leaderboard at the half way stage of the SailJuice Global Warm-Up. 
Nick Craig is the early leader of the SailJuice Global Warm-up 2011 after winning the single-handed division of the Grafham Grand Prix on Sunday. Craig, from Frensham Pond Sailing Club, scored equal points with fellow Phantom sailor Simon Childs from Hayling Island. Childs won the first race, and was second in the next, while Craig scored his second and first the other way round, and won the singlehander division by virtue of winning the final race. The Phantom fleet dominated the division, taking the first five places overall.
Musto Skiff sailor Andy Peake has found himself as the new, unexpected and somewhat reluctant champion of the SailJuice Global Warm-Up 2011. Almost a fortnight since the final event of the UK dinghy winter travellers’ series concluded at a windy John Merricks Tiger Trophy at Rutland Water, controversial debate about the legality of their experimental sails has forced the winners, Merlin Rocket sailors Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis, to relinquish the title.
The SailJuice Global Warm-Up 2011 concluded in dramatic fashion at a very windy John Merricks Tiger Trophy last weekend. While the 505 of Andy Smith and Tim Needham swept all before them to win all three races on Saturday and a £1,000 cheque for their hat trick, the Merlin Rocket of Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis quietly went about its business to finish 3rd overall at Rutland Water.
Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis sailed their Merlin Rocket to victory in the John Merricks Tiger Trophy at Rutland Water last weekend. Biggs and Hollis have now scored consecutive wins in the SailJuice Global Warm-Up, after winning the Doublehanded division of the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy the previous weekend.
After 13 years of trying, the £1,000 cheque to the first team to win all races at the John Merricks Tiger Trophy has gone to Andy Smith and Tim Needham, who conquered some fierce conditions in their 505 this weekend. Some competitors were surprised when race officer David Wilkins, an Olympic silver medallist, decided to send sailors out for the three handicap races on Saturday. "David reckons it's only 20 knots," muttered competitors grimly in the changing rooms, looking as though they were about to sent out to almost certain doom. 
Tom Jeffcoate and Tom Pygall won the John Merricks Tiger Trophy 2012 by the skin of their teeth. Competing in sub-zero conditions, the Scorpion National Champion equalled Merlin Rocket racers Matt Biggs and Ben Hollis from Blithfield with 20 points apiece from the four races. But on the tie-break the trophy went to the Scorpion sailors.
With the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy just completed, the SailJuice Global Warm-Up 2012 has passed the half-way stage, with a Fireball still sitting in pole position. It was a light wind regatta at Northampton last Saturday, but it could be a different story at the Tiger Trophy this weekend....
The third edition of the SailJuice Global Warm-up brings together five of the biggest winter handicap racing events into a unified series, to find out just who is tough enough to race their way through the brutal cold of a British winter. It kicks off with the Grafham Grand Prix on 2 January 2012.
