This year’s Laser fleet Racing has been the story of an aspirational and very hard working sailor finally making it to the front of the fleet. He has a long sailing history mind you and the prowess that we see, can be partly sourced back to his father, who encouraged the boy-racer to helm in the early days, in the family Scorpion. I am told that this led to very high scores in the National Championships as the pair honed their skills to great precision...

So now Steve Smith has brought it all together in his Laser and through a Wednesday evening series of wildly differing wind strengths, managed to stay at the top to the leader board with seven firsts and a worst result of 7th to score an almost unbelievable 9 points in total. Not even the extremely consistent Peter Sherwin could top that. He was a close second with 12 points overall, with Cameron Scott at 23 points in third. There were 26 qualifiers in all, proving that the series has not lost its popularity, though some of us mid-fleeter’s seemed unable to attend as often as we might have liked.

In the Summer series Cameron Scott took the poll position and won the Melvin Junior Trophy, showing that he is also a rising star. His performance in the Laser Nationals was very impressive too, coming in at 28th out of 81 entries. Ellie Cumpsty managed a very creditable 9th out of 56 in her Radial at the RYA Volvo youth Championships (Silver Fleet) in April and her brother Richard managed 7th out of 33 in the Laser Radial National championships (Gold Fleet) in July.

Other club results of note include:

Frostbite AM - Laser -                         Duncan Whitrow

March Class Race Day - Laser             Duncan Whitrow

May Class Race Day - Laser            Martin Jeremy

Spring Points - Laser                        Martin Jeremy

June Class Race Day - Laser            Jeremy Millward

Frostbite PM - Laser                        Chris Jones

CVLSC Laser Open( see the 2011 Open Report for details of this windy series)

Laser                                    1st Peter Shirwin

Laser                                    2nd Julian Cooke

Laser                                     3rd Andrew Southall (got to get my name in lights while I still have editorial control) Radial                                    1st Duncan Whitrow

Radial                                    2nd Ellie Cumpsty

Radial                                    3rd Rob Beere (Burghfield SC)

So another successful year at Chew for the ever popular Laser Fleet with its own range of competition right the way through the fleet. As we mid-fleet specialists like to confirm (to anyone who will listen), we have as much fun competing for 10th as they do at the top of the fleet competing for first and that is why there are so many of us!

This is my last Laser Report as the Fleet Captain. I am handing over to Helen Martin, a nimble and admirably competent sailor who regularly baffles me with her ability to sail right past me in her radial when I have a full rig. No doubt she will be prove an excellent captain as well. I hope you will join me in wishing her all the best with the task.

Andrew Southall 186838