St Mawes hosts Falmouth working boat races (From Boating Cornwall)

St Mawes hosts Falmouth working boat races

11:37am Tuesday 30th June 2009

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St Mawes Sailing Club hosted the Falmouth Working Boat "World" Championships last weekend.

Sixteen B class working boats entered the big boat class and eight boats entered C class, the smaller working boats.

Both classes sailed the same Olympic courses consisting of a triangle, sausage leg and triangle and finish at the club line in St Mawes.

Race Officer, Ron Medlyn, set some testing courses with all the turning marks set at St Mawes Castle, Pendennis Castle and Trefusis Point. This gave superb views of the racing for local spectators and holiday visitors, displaying these superb boats in their coloured topsails with crews attired in their boat's colours. Against the background of blue skies and sparkling water in a ten to 12 knot Southerly wind, made a wonderful spectacle and showed why these boats are held in such esteem by the local population.

With the help of a number of sponsors, the championship was a huge success. Grateful thanks was expressed to all the sponsors at the prize giving by chairman, Dr Phil Slater.

Friday morning brought the first race in a nice breeze, but overcast skies. In B class Rebecca (Phil Slater) had to retire near the end of the first beat to windward, breaking some top sail gear. This left Victory, Moon and Stella to fight it out for first place. After the handicaps were completed, Stella was awarded first place, Victory second and Moon third.

Race two started in very overcast conditions and luckily when the race started, although visibility was poor, the racing marks were visible.

However, after the first round, heavy sea fog came into the harbour and cut visibility down to 150 yards. Fortunately the fog lifted on the last round to enable everyone to finish. This race was won by Victory with Rebecca, after repairing the damage, coming in second and Demelza, John Andrews boat out of St Mawes third.

Saturday dawned to perfect conditions with blue skies, seven to ten knot Southerly wind - a perfect day for sailing.

Once again Victory was among the leaders, but Abigail Rose held first place at the windward mark and throughout the race improved her lead on every leg to take the winners gun with Victory second and Evelyn in third spot.

Race four after lunch was again sailed in perfect conditions, but the race management team made all marks to starboard and set problems for some skippers.

This race brought out the best in the St Mawes fleet as Evelyn took the winning gun with Florence second and Victory again in the frame at number three.

The final race on Sunday morning was greeted with a force four Easterly wind with quite a difficult sea chop to cope with.

However, Ron Medlyn found the most sheltered part of the harbour to set his course in, but did not anticipate the wind practically dying away to nothing after the first round.

It then became a bit of a lottery as to who would pick up a breeze first. Eventually the wind reappeared to its former strength providing the fleet with a long beat home to St Mawes. Rebecca, who really never lost the wind, had worked out a huge lead over Abigail Rose, who led the first round, but ran out of wind. Third place went to Moon.

After all the calculations were completed Victory was crowned World Champion. Previously built in 1911 and owned by the renowned Toby West, the rebuilt working boat is co-owned by David Carne, David Muirhead and Paul Collins. They proved very worthy winners and sailed consistently well.

Second place went to Abigail Rose (Norman Bowers), third place went to Florence, another old wood boat brought back into superb condition by a syndicate and helmed by Stephen Miles. Fourth went to another wooden boat Evelyn, helmed by Chris Thomas. So three of the first four boats were wooden and very old boats, but thanks to their owners and syndicates have brought them up to superb condition and fitted out with the best of sails and gear.

In C class it soon became apparent that Lottie, owned by Paul Ferris and helmed by Paul Williams, was the boat to beat and indeed of the five races sailed, Lottie picked up three first places and a second to win the class and become champions.

In second place Girl Sarah, helmed by Adam Davis, gave a very gritty performance to win two first places and two seconds and so finished only one point behind the winner. This crew are a team of youngsters who work hard and are dedicated to racing their boat and after racing they party hard in true working boat traditions.

Third place went to Leila, sailed and owned by Adam Bird, the working boats treasurer.

At the prize giving special thanks were given to Joan and Liz Maunder for the loan of their yacht Melkin and with Ron Medlyn as race officer and Cedric Thomas as gunner, proved a formidable team. John worked the flags and Liz did all the count-downs and broadcasting over the radio.

Special thanks were given to all the sponsors, St Mawes harbour masters, St Mawes Hotel, Victory Inn, St Mawes Sailing club and St Mawes Social Club, who hosted the evening's entertainment. Community singing of famous Cornish songs were rendered far into the evening!

Results - B Class - Large Working Boats: 1, Victory (Carne/Muirhead/Collins); 2, Abigail Rose (N Bowers); 3, Florence (syndicate); 4, Evelyn (Chris Thomas); 5, Moon (Patrick Selman); 6, Rebecca (Phil Slater); 7, Stella (Ian Jenkin); 8, Grace (Charles Jeffery); 9, Demelza (John Andrews); 10, Helen Mary (D Clode); 11, Winnie (Arthur/Arty Williams); 23, Irene (R Northey); 13, Mildred (David Cockwell); 14, Mabel (Peter Collett); 15, Zulu (K Radford); 16, Alf Smythers (Chris Ranger); C Class - Small Working Boats: 1, Lottie (Paul Ferris); 2, The Girl Sarah (Adam Davis); 3, Leila (Adam Bird); 4, Deliverance (Mike Stratton); 5, Sapphire (Chris Simmons); 6, Murial (Chenoweth/Harper); 7, Mary Anne (Pridmore/Andrew); 7, Edith (Mal Stone).

n The Working Boat crews made a collection over the weekend to donate to a charity, Hand Stand Appeal. This is a young Cornish boy, Marshall Janson, who contacted meningitis and has to have all new limbs. A total of £693 was donated to help provide artificial limbs.