Battle of the Classes - 07/01/2010

Just eight hours after downing one too many pints of Thumper, Mike Lyons was
to be seen dragging his Halo along with his hangover at dawn along the M4 in
a three-lane desert of frosty fog. His destination The Battle of Classes
dinghy pursuit race at Docklands' London Boat Show's 2010. Did he win?
Very possibly, because most contestants were still in bed at this Lyons-only
hour. Except for farmer Beddows and his trusty bitch Paul Taylor (his words
not mine) , who - the former farmer that he was and still is (stay with it
Blaze intellects) - dry-lightened his boat in his heated grain dryer the
week before and arrived equally early to ensure that he too had a prime
position on the launching beach.

Blaze sailor Ben Fullalove duly followed at a more sensible time (daylight)
in a bright yellow panic complete with fishnet tramps. And then, probably
just trying to physche out the opposition, Peter Barlow's relatively late
arrival with the second coming Halo made up the Citrus fleet of four.

The pursuit was around 90 minutes or two hours - difficult to remember when
you're freezing your nuts off as a spectator and giving up the will to live
after seconds - but everyone seemed to get away ok apart from a Shadow which
was a shadow of its intended self and seemed to complete the entire race
without ever having starting it.

It was a bit like Noah's Ark, with two of everything allowed in - up to a
point where either they reached the limit or classes lost interest and
didn't bother to enter. No Lasers- what's that all about? Anyway, apart
from a few Billy-no-mates including an A-rater that was taller than the
jostling sky-scrapers which rejoiced in f.....g up the wind, most boats were
twinned and it was a grudge match against your other half and the remaining
boats - yardstick bandits all - to be the first through the line at the end.

Devotis and RS100s were newbies in the throng, although with a bit of a
fickle 2-3 wind and a direction as friendly as the footsie, it was not going
to be a good day for the asymetrics. The usual pond-life prima donnas
started first - Mirror, Graduate, Streaker, Ent, etc - and as in many a
Wednesday-nighter when no-one but you knows what they are doing - they did
for the most part do surprisingly well.

Certainly the space was restricted with little dock width to sail in, very
hard wharf walls on both sides and even harder Marines patrolling wherever
they wanted to really - maybe they were rescue but they looked more likely
to shoot you first.

The race did what races usually do - a bit of to-oing and fro-ing - Mike
Lyons got ahead of one Phantom but was outpaced by another, Simon Beddows
got ahead of Ben Fullalove's Blaze and Pete Barlow did all right as well.
The winner was a Mr Steve Cockerill complete with a lightweight crew
conceived earlier that day, in a Graduate which rose to the occasion and
simply sailed extremely well (it was in fact his son's first race outing as
crew and good for him).

No top ten places for our Blaze and Halo boys but a good show overall, and a
lot of tannoyed publicity for 'Citrus' Halo in particular. Someone should put
them right.

Roger Williams

762

Results (sourced form Yachts & Yachting event page)