The weekend of 25/26 October saw the Laser5000 fleet returning to Datchet Water sailing club for their Inland Championships. Saturday dawned with a light Northerly breeze and Sunshine. These were not ideal conditions for sailing at Datchet where the water is now surrounded by an 80 foot wall and this produced some of the most shifty and Tactical sailing that the fleet has had to deal with this year.
There was a schedule of 6 Races to get off in the 2 days of sailing and the race officer made an outstanding decision to postpone race 1 until the breeze settled enough to lay a consistent windward leeward course. The start saw all boats crossing the line at full pace only seconds after the gun. This produced a very exciting top mark with the Lewis brothers leading by less than 1 boat length to the combination of Watson and Linnell. The lewis brothers lead the race until a dubious tactical decision on the last gybe of the last leg that let Watson/Linnel to take the bullet by 3 seconds.
With the breeze now building to full twin wiring conditions race 2 saw the importance of boat handling, but time in the boat counted for nothing after the Lewis brothers rig tesion let go on the start line resulting in a broken mast and colourful language. This let Johnson/Hindle and Watson/Linnel to battle it out with Johnson/Hindle finishing first. The final race saw some massive windshifts and the Watson/Linnel combination played these to a tee taking honours with minutes to spare.
On day 2 the fleet was presented again with sun but a serve lack of breeze and what pressure there was, was very light and flooky. The new rig that the Lewis brothers had acquired found them off the pace and the Johnson/Hindle pair were on fire finding all the right shifts and always being in pressure. However the Watson/Linnel pair managed to pull enough out of the bag to take the inland championships not on points, not on count back but on the result of the final race.
Sailed: 10 Discards: 2
| Pos | Sail No | Helm | Crew | Club | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5288 | Dave Watson | Toby Linnell | Grafham SC | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 5287 | Craig Johnson | Mandy Hindle | Grafham SC | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| 3 | 5254 | Iain Lewis | Matt Lewis | Stokes Bay SC | 2 | DNF | DNS | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |