Port Dinorwic Sailing Club / CLWB HWYLIO Y FELINHELI50TH ANNIVERSARY REGATTA WEEKENDThe weekend of July 5th and 6th saw the perfect weather for a celebration of the success of PDSC /CHYF over the last half century. With almost a hundred boats racing on the Menai Straits during both days, and a marquee hosting a memorable party into the small hours of Sunday morning, club members and friends enjoyed an event which will be remembered for at least the next fifty years of the club's history. At two pm on the Saturday afternoon, exactly fifty years from the start of the first race ever held at the club, a mass start saw 88 boats, from Optimists to Fifes, Flying Dutchmen to Scimitars, and Laser 4000s to Mirrors, set out on three seperate courses for the Anniverary Race, beating into a steady force two to three breeze with the tide under them. The largest fleet, the 50 strong dinghy handicap, was won by Richard and Rachel Parkhouse from the home club, with Bob and Mandy Suggitt second - the medium size dinghies took all the honours with the first trapeze boat tenth. The Mirrors and Oppies raced round a short course in front of the club, and the keelboat classes, numbers swollen by our neighbours from the Royal Welsh and the Royal Angelsey, disappeared to distant navigation marks. While the dinghies then held the first race of the Association of North Wales Sailing Clubs' annual championships, the marquee was full, with some 70 children enjoying a full on jelly and games party culminating naturally in singing Happy Birthday and leaving with a slice of cake. Out on the lawn, those members whose racing days are now long over were able to reminisce and admire 'Gypsy' the only restored survivor of the PD one designs on which the clubs early success was based. During the prizegiving for the Anniversary race, held in the clubhouse, the marquee was cleared for the evening, before 350 diners enjoyed their buffet. Wine was supplied by the local pub, the Gardd Fon, while the jazz accompaniment came from the owner of the comittee boat, recently back from winning his CHS class in Rover Week. Its not April Fools day, its true, and its just how we do things here. The jazz gave way to a disco, and the dancing got wilder as the evening got later. Sunday morning saw competitors and race management alike struggling with the sailing instructions as well as their hangovers, but the feat of running three races on two courses, with a total of 19 starts, all finishing on the same club line, was handled perfectly by the Race Officers, Bill Hughes and Bob Lowe, and their excellent teams. The weather was again perfect, the only work for the rescue crews was retreiving keelboats as the ebb exposed the sandbanks, and retrieving the outer limit mark from the capsized whizz-bang dinghy which was entangled with it and taking it rapidly towards Dublin. The spirit of the whole event protects the name of the culprit. The dinghy series was won, on discard, by the Suggitts, from local heros Andy Long and Mark McGarry, the latest converts to the rapidly growing Hornet fleet at the club. Justice was done in the Oppy and Mirror classes and the GP 14s slipped in a round of their North Wales Travellers Trophy when no-one was watching. The club keelboat fleet, the Scimitars, enjoyed the close tactical racing they have come to expect and love over the last decades. The young lions, and lionesses, of the keelboat world aboard Frank Sonata took the handicap class and the one design keelboats from the Royal Angelsey, the Fifes, Squibs and Menai Straits were almost given the correct prizes. Patrick Metcalfe was the youngest Oppy sailor. From PDSC / CHYF to all our visitors - thanks for coming! OVERALL RESULTSANNIVERSARY RACEDinghies
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This page was last updated on 06 December 1998 - Please send contributions and comments to Richard Phillips mailto:100446.2371@compuserve.com . For more sailing links see www.sail-cd.demon.co.uk/index.htm |