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LASER PICO NATIONALS – COLWYN BAY – JULY 3/4TH 2010
Mindful of our regular annual visit to the Pico Challenge we were excited by the fact that this year it was to incorporate the Nationals. Our minds dwelt on the excitements of much bigger fleets with the great and the good from up and down the country flocking to race in the Nationals in the Welsh briny of Colwyn Bay. We arrived at the eerily deserted beach at lunchtime for an afternoon of coaching and practice. The local RYA coach led us through the afternoon as mainly Rydal Penrhos and Sedbergh boats took to the water, after Rydal had finished their sports day, carefully calendared to clash with this national event hosted by the same school!
The wind was up and the sea tasted salty. The rescue boats were given plenty to do as the younger members of the fleet all managed to show their bottoms to the sky. Eventually the prep school sailors, sailing their Bugs, were shepherded safely to the shore. The Sedbergh contingent was strengthened by the inclusion of Killington sailor, Jack Lawson, who is no stranger to travelling with the Sedbergh sailing team. Top five finishes for Patrick Shellcock, crewed by Simon Colley and Jack Lawson boded well for the next day’s competitive sailing. Llandudno’s bowling alley was ritually visited although the combined team score might have disgraced an errant welsh dragon.
Saturday dawned with a good wind and some sun. Jack and Pat were on form with a couple of firsts apiece in the morning’s three races. Meanwhile in the Regatta fleet, Felix Zinkann and Helen McConnel were also holding up the honour for Germany and Sedbergh coming off the water in 4/5th position. The afternoon saw less wind but the competition was hotting up in the Championship fleet with only a few points separating the top sailors and a possible collusive relationship between the Rydal boats building up to keep Jack away from the top position. Nothing deterred he continued to sail consistently and managed a three point lead overnight. Patrick and Simon, however were neck and neck with a pair of Rydal sailors and indeed felt strongly enough that they protested the other boat but the PRO dismissed their protest on the basis that they had not used the word “protest” on the water. Felix had managed to inch his way up to 2nd in the regatta fleet, but the frontrunner in that fleet was miles out of reach and, arguably, should have been in the top fleet. Helen maintained her mid fleet position, but only separated by 8 points from the 2nd place – below her was a clear 12 points down to the next contender.
The barbecue gave us another opportunity to test our mettle with a good “It’s a Knockout” giving us a chance to show off our skills with wellie filling and throwing......... although Dr Ripley managed to get into the winning wellie filling team, no further honours were won!
We woke up to the anticipated 50 mph gusting wind and prudence saw no further sailing attempted. Cumbria came away with the spoils.....
Jack Lawson Pico S/H National Champion
Patrick Shellcock + Simon Colley Pico D/H National Champions
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TEAM QUOTES
Helen McConnel: The weekend was loads of fun. The racing was good because the wind was up and blowing everyone over. I managed to stay dry apart from the spray that the boat turned up. The jelly fish were kept at bay and there was no injuries apart from a few blows to the head by the boom. I enjoyed the weekend because on the water the was a competitive streak but off the water everyone was at ease with each other.
Jack Lawson: Some good wind (albeit shifty) and competitive racing was seen at the front of the fleet during Saturday. We had three races before dinner and three after because we knew that there were some big winds coming for Sunday. The three races before dinner were pretty standard, good racing apart from the fact that a bee decided to sting me on the lip while I was racing.
After dinner we came out to big swell but not much wind. This is where people with a good knowledge of the surrounding waters knew what they were doing better.
The whole weekend was very social off the water, which was great to relax after a good day’s sailing.
Simon Colley: We had a great and very successful weekend, with some fantastic sailing conditions on the Saturday but ridiculously strong winds on Sunday causing the racing to be off. Me and Patrick who sailed doubled handed had a great day on the Saturday and came off the water with some fantastic results and leading by 2 points in the championship fleet. We had some very competitive racers among us and it was very close at the end of the first day as we had very similar results as our opposition.
On Sunday the winds were very strong and we were disappointed that it was off as we were hoping to extend our lead at the top of the table. However we still had a great weekend and a fantastic result.
Patrick Shellcock has no quotes since he was suffering from illness all w/e which made him even more relieved that he didn’t have to race on Sunday.....
Felix Zinkann: We got a great weekend with some really good sailing on Saturday and on Friday .On Sunday the wind was too strong so we couldn’t race, but all in all we got some pretty good results at this weekend with two 1st and one 2nd place. I’m glad that I went to this event. I did really enjoy the weekend with a lot of fun and hope to go next year again.
There was a great water fight as well with the main leader Helen McConnel, at the BBQ on Saturday. She made other people wet but she didn’t want to get wet at all. So she stayed in the building and was looking at us smiling and saying: “That is my life I can do with it what I want!!”
On Saturday evening at the BBQ there was a mini “It’s a Knock Out” as well that was fun. Our group came 2nd LAST, but we really didn’t care - we were just messing around!
All in All a perfect weekend with a lot of fun.