International, national and local success
What a wonderful couple of weeks it has been both here in the UK and Internationally and with success a plenty, where to start is the question?Sailing achievement of the year is a possibility; Mike Holt, P&B powered 505 World Champion, winner of this Yachts and Yachting award who then promptly followed this award with a podium placing at the 2015 Bloody Mary. More on this later.
What a wonderful couple of weeks it has been both here in the UK and Internationally and with success aplenty, where to start is the question?
Sailing achievement of the year is a possibility; Mike Holt, P&B powered 505 World Champion, winner of this Yachts and Yachting award who then promptly followed this award with a podium placing at the 2015 Bloody Mary. More on this later.
“After campaigning for 25 years, Mike took an extremely gratifying win from a fleet of 173 boats at the SAP 505 World Championships, sailing with crew Rob Woelfel. Together they fought off competition from five other boats, all of whom had been capable of winning on the last day, and it was neck and neck to the line. It was an outstanding performance in a class that takes a huge amount of skill and dedication to excel in.” – Georgie Corlett-Pitt. Editor – Yachts & Yachting Magazine.
Or we could go with another Y&Y award for a P&B supported sailor. Youth sailor of the year, that went to the superbly talented Vita Heathcote.
Not only has Vita been successful in winning the Optimist senior title at the age of 13, alongside victory at the Irish Nationals, but she was also the best placed UK sailor at the Optimist Worlds. Vita is also an absolute credit to sailing in general. We would like to add that Vita has been a superb ambassador for P&B both on and off the water, we look forward to continuing to support her in 2015.
Quite often at this time of year we escape our current winter blues and shift the focus to warmer climes and in particular Australian waters. It seems that P&B sails are just as fast down-under.
We start with the International 14 World Championships, P&B’s Ben McGrane and James Hughes finished 2nd overall (for the third time, we believe). Ben has produced a marvelous article highlighted by Y&Y on his time down under which is well worth a read and can be found through this link. http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/181074/International-14-Worlds-Review
Moving swiftly on, P&B powered Ashley Smith & Adam Kingston secured the 2015 Flying 15 Australian National Championships and this result was complemented by two other suits of P&B sails in the top five.
Congratulations to:
3972 1st Overall, Ashley Smith & Adam Kingston
3611 3rd Overall, Trevor Williams & Damian Anderson
4006 4th Overall, Mark Daly & Nicole Magyar
Moving along the Australian coast to the recent 505 National Championships, where P&B powered Kevin Cameron & Sam Heritage took the overall win with four race wins out of eight.
Now for closer to home…
The Bloody Mary 2015:- Entered into the Yachts and Yachting hall of fame as one of the Top 5 events in the world, the event draws competitors from all over the UK and this year all the way from California too!
Showing the form that won him racing ‘Performance of the Year’ was Mike Holt. Just off the plane fighting off jet lag, a tight course and a huge amount of boats to pass along the way, Mike finished an excellent 3rd overall, again using a full P&B sail inventory. This was backed up by another P&B boat in the top five. On a day and a course that was not for the slow boats, Mike Sims sailing a Solo did a superb job to finish 10th overall using his Solo Radial main. Only 71 boats out of the 236 entered finished in the brutal conditions.
Finally, for this week we end as close to home as it is possible for P&B, with the Steve Nicholson Memorial Trophy. Set up in memory of P&B employee Steve Nicholson, this event proved another superb success. A new record was set in the single-handed division with over 80 boats on the start line. It was a fantastic day with money being raised for asthma research and for this team at least, the icing on the cake was local sailor Will Gulliver taking the overall win in the single-handed division.
Will was using the latest Phantom Radial mainsail, constructed from ODL04.5 cloth. The new sail has been through the design team’s hands this winter and appears to be superbly fast! With an optimized patch layout and new epoxy battens to go with the recently optimized batten pockets.
This is possible because at P&B we design, build, cut and re-cut our sails in-house in Northampton. This allows us to streamline our processes whilst maintaining quality control throughout the process. Our sails are fast across the globe.
Our laminate Radial Sail Range is fast across the classes, as was proved by taking first and second in the Solo class and Dave Wade and Ben Rayner stepping back into the Merlin class to finish fifth overall in the double handers and first overall in the Merlin fleet.
Well done to everyone that is sailing through the winter. Next up in the UK is the Tiger Trophy and if the forecast is to be believed it must be time to read the P&B Newsletter regarding the merits of Wetsuits versus Drysuits! and invest in good gloves a new hat and some strong leg muscles!
Results:-
505 Mike Holt Y&Y Racing Performance of the Year
Youth sailor of the year award Vita Heathcote
International 14 Worlds 2nd Overall
Flying 15 Australian nationals championships 1st 3rd and 4th
505 Australian nationals 1st and 4th
Bloody Mary Results 3rd 5th and 10th Overall
Steve Nicholson 1st Single handers, 1st Phantom, 1st Solo, 1st merlin Rocket, 1st National 12
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