Sail Register Northern Paddle Series

Count your best 12 race results.

Report by Ian Priest:

West Riding SC hosted the final event of the Sail Register sponsored Streaker Northern Paddle series in gusty conditions on 28th October, completing a 14 event series of open meetings starting at Tamworth Sailing club back in late March.

The events were spread right across the north of the UK, with Tamworth in the south, Hornsea in the east, Elton in the west and East Lothian in the north. A total of 102 different boats took part, there were 15 different race winners, and a fleet of 24 boats at the best attended open meeting at Ripon, making it one of the most popular adult class series in the north of the UK.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the number of events involved, nobody managed to attend every single open meeting in the series this year, but Peter Kitchen from Tees & Hartlepool Yacht Club came closest having travelled to 10 events. He showed remarkable consistency too, counting only 2nd, 3rd and 4th places to secure 4th place overall with a total of 34 points.

An open meeting win at Beaver SC, and counting a number of 1st, 2nd,3rd and 4th place race results was enough to secure 3rd place for Ian Priest from Scaling Dam SC with a total of 30 points.

Martin Penty from Beaver SC won the open meeting at Scaling Dam SC, and counted a better series of results to secure 2nd place overall with a total of 25 points.

The series was won by Alan Gillard from Sheffield Viking SC. Alan won the open meetings at Hornsea, Elton, Girton and Yeadon, and counting almost entirely 1st place results for his series total of 18 points.

As is traditional in this series, the class association presented prizes to all qualifiers for the series, which this year was a class association branded USB power pack, which will no doubt prove very helpful keeping everyone's mobile phones charged next year.

Sail Register, the sponsor for the Northern Paddle series also presented a series prize of a brand new Streaker sail. This is drawn as a raffle, with each race entry 'buying' a ticket in the draw. This year, the name drawn out was Ian Priest from Scaling Dam SC.

Overall Series Results: (top six)

1st Alan Gillard, 18pts
2nd Martin Penty, 25pts
3rd Ian Priest, 30pts
4th Peter Kitchen, 34pts
5th Peter Tyerman, 70pts
6th Richard Eagland, 71pts