14  squibs travelled down to Torquay for the 2019 Squib Nationals. Whilst the fleet was slightly smaller than experienced for the 50^th Anniversary in Cowes last year it was sure to be extremely competitive with a number of ex national champions taking part as well as a couple of new faces.

Royal Torbay Yacht Club played hosts and despite losing 1 day racing due to light winds on the Tuesday, a full 6 races were completed thanks to the slick operations of the PRO and race team. The Burnham fleet got off to a good start as mentioned in last week’s Sailmail with Squiggle winning the second race and a number of the Burnham boats getting into the high numbers.

By race 3 it was still wide open with a number of boats posting a high score amongst their results. In race 4, it was Squiggle’s turn to come to the front and lead the way round the course however it was not meant to be as their sail number was shown on the whiteboard as being OCS, handing the race win to Jack and Nigel Grogan (Helmut Shoing, 105).

The weather picked up on Thursday and the waves got larger as the wind blew in from the east. This was the perfect weather for some and it was great to see Squiggle (Jono Brown and Chris Dunn) bounce straight back and this time take the win ahead of Helmut Shoing. Everything was still very much to play for going into the last race with the top 5 boats (including Squiggle and Helmut Shoing) separated by just a few points.

The last day of racing and it appeared that the weather was going to be a carbon copy of the day before. After a first attempt under the U flag, the PRO quickly dug out the blackflag and unfortunately two boats fell foul – one of these being Squiggle – and were sent home for an early lift out. The race continued and it was the turn of Cariad Bach (previous National Champion Alan Johnson from SCYC) to pull out a large lead with the rest of the fleet challenging for the remaining positions. A superb third run (you can guess who’s written this report) saw Spoof jump up the rankings and hold onto this to take third place just ahead of Helmut Shoing.

With their 4^th place in the final race, it was Jack and Nigel Grogan in Helmut Shoing who were crowned this year’s Squib National Champion whilst RCYC took home the Finlandia trophy for the largest travelling fleet once more. A fantastic event and yet again, RCYC proved themselves to be a force to be reckoned with!

FULL RESULTS – http://results.rtyc.org/hosted2019/squibs/nationals.htm