Start line action at the Steve Nicholson Trophy
This popular annual event will take place at Pitsford Reservoir on Saturday 30th January 2010, with all proceeds raised going to the Asthma UK charity.
Racing will be divided into three different fleets Single Handed, Double Handed and Asymmetric. The first race starts at 11.00 for the Single and Double handers and 12.30 for the Asymmetrics.
Current leaders in the SailJuice Global Warm-Up Series are 505 sailors Andy Smith and Tim Needham, thanks to their victory in the Bloody Mary at the beginning of January. After a stint of training in the south of France, they planned to come back to contest the next event at Northampton. However Smith, a former Fireball World Champion, will encounter tough competition from other Fireballers, including a few more ex World Champs such as DJ Edwards, Matt Mee and Simon Potts.
The four events of the Series are:
Bloody Mary, Queen Mary Sailing Club
9th January 2010
Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy, Northampton Sailing Club
30th January 2010
John Merricks Tiger Trophy, Rutland Sailing Club
6th/7th February 2010
Hoo Freezer, Hoo Ness Yacht Club
28th February 2010
Prizes include a two-day ‘Learn to Fly' sailing course in Spain. This is not just any sailing lesson, but an opportunity to learn how to sail a foiling Bladerider Moth at Pro-Vela's spectacular Performance Sailing Tuition centre in Mar Menor, Spain. Rooster Sailing is supplying £300 from its technical sailing clothing range, and Holt is offering £300 of gear from its High Performance Hardware range. Hyde Sails is offering a voucher for £200 worth of sails or accessories. Yachts & Yachting is providing annual digital subscriptions to the UK's leading performance sailing magazine, and SailJuice.com is giving annual subscriptions to its ‘How to Sail Faster' website.
To find out more about the SailJuice Global Warm-Up, including the Notice of Series, How to Enter, and more about the prizes on offer, click here: www.sailjuice.com/categories/global-warm-up-2010
To find out more about this weekend's Steve Nicholson Trophy, go to the Northampton Sailing Club website.
There is also a page on Facebook. Click here to join Steve Nicholson Facebook Group.
Sponsors of the SailJuice Global Warm-Up
Pro Vela: www.pro-vela.com
Rooster Sailing: www.roostersailing.com
Holt: www.holt.eu
Hyde Sails: www.hydesails.com
Yachts & Yachting: www.yachtsandyachting.com
SailJuice: www.SailJuice.com
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...
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:
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.
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...."
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....
Olly Turner has won the SailJuice Global Warm-Up, the four-event winter travellers' series which concluded at the weekend with the Hoo Freezer. Turner's victory is particularly special because he sailed as crew in three events and as helm in the other, proving himself a versatile sailor at both ends of the Merlin Rocket that he competed in. Turner, crewing for Richard Whitworth at the Hoo Freezer in Kent this past weekend, finished 9th in Saturday's practice race, which was won by the International Canoe sailed by Simon Allen. At the time Turner can't have realised the significance of completing the practice race, but with winds gusting up to Force 7 across the Medway estuary on Sunday morning, Saturday's warm-up took on a new level of importance.
Some of the UK's top dinghy sailors are steeling themselves for a windy conclusion to the SailJuice Global Warm-Up Series at this weekend's Hoo Freezer in Kent. Hosted by the Hoo Ness Yacht Club with the assistance of nearby Wilsonian Sailing Club, this will be the 39th edition of this historic event. It's looking to be a windy one....
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....
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.
