The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Tom Bell was crowned champion of Welland Yacht Club’s Commodores Points Series on Sunday.
A victory and a second place in the final two rounds of the competition were enough for Bell to stave off the efforts of Gail Follington and Alan Cox in second and third places respectively.
With a reasonable breeze and strong gusts, eight boats started race five in the series – which still kept with the pursuit format.
First away in the 60-minute long course race was Follington in a Topper, followed by the Graduate of Neal Tack and Rebecca Slator some 8.40mins later.
Next away, 50 seconds further on, were the Laser Radials of Mark Holland, Alan Cox and Alistair Mitchell.
Then 20 seconds later the Europes of Ros Nickols and Brian Cobb set off, before finally the full Laser rig of Tom Bell left the start 1.50mins later.
As the fleet tacked their way along the upwind leg, the order remained – although Bell had started to make gains on the boats ahead.
With Follington first around the top mark (buoy five) followed by Tack and Slator, Holland, Cox, Nickols, Cobb, Bell then Mitchell.
The downwind run allowed for Bell to take a few more places and, by the time he’d rounded the lea mark (buoy one), he had moved up to third.
Meanwhile, the remainder of the fleet were bunching up as they made their run down to buoy one.
Once around, Nickols and Cobb had moved up to fourth and fifth respectively, with Cox sixth, Holland seventh and Mitchell eighth.
Bell had made it to the front on rounding the next top mark (buoy four) with about ten minutes to go.
He held position to win the race, while Follington held on to second spot, with Tack and Slator claiming third.
After a short break, the final race of the series got under way with one boat dropping out and the course reduced to suit the wind direction.
Seven boats got away in the same order as previous and, by now, the wind had picked up slightly with Follington first around the top mark (four), followed by Tack and Slator then Holland, Nickols, Cox, Bell and Mitchell.
Again, on the initial run back to buoy one, Bell would work his way up to second but soon found himself wind shielded by the boats behind, slowing him back up and allowing the rest to draw in closer.
On approaching buoy one, Holland would find himself back in third with right of way over Bell ahead of him.
Unfortunately, clipping the buoy meant that, despite coming around the buoy ahead, Holland would slip back to sixth after taking penalty turns.
In the closing minutes Bell tried his hardest to catch Follington, but she held on to claim first position.
Bell settled for second, with Cox claiming third.
