Another brutal winter won't be enough to stop Britain's keenest dinghy racers...
The second edition of the SailJuice Global Warm-up brings together four 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. Earlier this year competitors battled their way through the first ever Global Warm-up, and this winter's early snow hints at another tough challenge ahead.
Starting a month from now, the four events of the Series are:
Grafham Grand Prix, Grafham Water Sailing Club
Sunday 2nd January 2011
Bloody Mary, Queen Mary Sailing Club
Saturday 8th January 2011
Steve Nicholson Trophy, Northampton Sailing Club
Saturday 29 January 2011
John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Rutland Sailing Club
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th February 2011
You can enter the Series here: www.sailracer.org/globalwarmup
This year SailJuice.com has teamed up with SailRacer.co.uk to provide an online entry system. This enables competitors to enter all four events in advance, or just the ones they want to do.
This is a one-discard series, so it's your three best scores to count. 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 Bloody Mary or Tiger Trophy, or in smaller divisions such as at the Grafham Grand Prix and Steve Nicholson Trophy.
There are some big incentives on offer, to be distributed to the winner, the runners-up and other competitors picked further down the fleet.
We've got prizes donated by:
- Laser Performance
- Rooster Sailing
- Holt
- Hyde Sails
- RS Sailing
- SailJuice.com
- YachtsandYachting.com
Full details of all prizes will be announced before the first event, the Grafham Grand Prix on 2 January. The prizegiving for the series will take place at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show at Alexandra Palace on the weekend of 5/6 March 2011.
Enter the Series here: www.sailracer.org/globalwarmup
© Ian Roman: Bloody Mary at Queen Mary Sailing Club
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.
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....
"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....
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:
How Andy Rice & Nick Murphy won the 2003 Bloody Mary in the 49er. "We expected to have a fight on our hands with Dave Hall and Simon Hiscocks, but when their jib came separated from the forestay on the first tack, we had a clear jump on the rest of our fleet. This was a huge benefit for us, as now we could focus on looking forwards...."
Mike Lyons ghosted to victory in his Blaze singlehander to win the inaugural Oxford Blue, the fourth event to take place in this season’s GJW Direct SailJuice Winter Series. For a first-time event, 115 entries was an impressive turnout. No doubt most competitors were fearing a windy outing, hoping for a less breezy gap in the storms that have been battering the UK in recent weeks. Well they got their wish, and then some....
A total of 188 entries competed on three different courses spread across the breadth of Grafham Water near Huntingdon. After all the crazy weather of recent times in the UK, the weather smiled on Grafham, with bright sunshine and a pleasant breeze of about 10 knots, and none of the nasty gusts that were predicted in the forecast.
