Another brutal winter won't be enough to stop Britain's keenest dinghy racers...
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.
Five major handicap events constitute this winter's series. They are:
SailJuice.com has teamed up with SailRacer.co.uk to provide an online entry system. This enables competitors to enter the events in advance.
With each event run on a different format, SailRacer has also devised a scoring system to balance up the relative value of each event, whether you're competing in one massed fleet such as at the Draycote Dash, Bloody Mary and Tiger Trophy, or in smaller divisions such as at the Grafham Grand Prix and Steve Nicholson Trophy.
Grafham Grand Prix, Grafham Water Sailing Club
Monday 2nd January 2012
Bloody Mary, Queen Mary Sailing Club
Saturday 7th January 2012
Steve Nicholson Trophy, Northampton Sailing Club
Saturday 28 January 2012
John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Rutland Sailing Club
Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th February 2012
Monday 2nd January 2012
Bloody Mary, Queen Mary Sailing Club
Saturday 7th January 2012
Steve Nicholson Trophy, Northampton Sailing Club
Saturday 28 January 2012
John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Rutland Sailing Club
Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th February 2012
Draycote Dash, Draycote Water Sailing Club
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th February 2012
SailJuice.com has teamed up with SailRacer.co.uk to provide an online entry system. This enables competitors to enter the events in advance.
With each event run on a different format, SailRacer has also devised a scoring system to balance up the relative value of each event, whether you're competing in one massed fleet such as at the Draycote Dash, Bloody Mary and Tiger Trophy, or in smaller divisions such as at the Grafham Grand Prix and Steve Nicholson Trophy.
Where Peter Barton had capsized his way around the Bloody Mary three weeks earlier, the more moderate conditions suited his T-foiled Cherub to a T, with Barton and crew David Ellis winning both races of the Asymmetric fleet. After two events, victory at the Bloody Mary plus their 3rd at the Steve Nicholson keeps Andy Smith & Tim Needham's 505 in pole position, but just a point ahead of Barton's Cherub...
After a sub-zero Bloody Mary earlier this month, dinghy racers are getting ready for another cold battle this Saturday at the second event in the SailJuice Global Warm-Up, the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy at Northampton Sailing Club....
With sub-zero temperatures, bone-chilling winds gusting over 25 knots, just 61 entrants and 29 finishers, this year's Bloody Mary must go down as one of the toughest in its 37 year history. This classic pursuit race throws up many different kinds of winners, and this year it was the turn of a 505, immaculately sailed by Staunton Harold's Andy Smith and Tim Needham, to lift the coveted trophy.
The basic facts on this brand new series:
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....
One-design racing is the purest measure of sailing prowess, but if you spend most of your sailing doing club races, then doubtless you will be spending much of your time racing under handicap. So of course you want to know how to 'milk' the system! Indeed, some sailors even choose their boat according to its perceived performance under handicap. Now, that's what you call pot hunting...
"Looking at the heinous forecast, under normal circumstances there would have been no way that I would have bothered to get out of bed that Saturday morning. With sub-zero temperatures, and a wind chill from a strong northerly breeze threatening to make a freezing day feel Arctic, the prospect of competing in the Bloody Mary was not my idea of fun...." Andy Rice reports from a shattering experience competing in a Devoti D-1 at the Bloody Mary....
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.
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.
