With minimal wind, but a hot sunny day forecast, it looked to be an interesting days sailing in prospect at this years Alton Water Southern Paddle event. After arriving with the newly made Shuster triple-stacker, along with 5 other visitors and 3 locals, everyone could see that thankfully it wasn’t going to be a complete drifter. Even though the event was unavoidably in competition with a Northern Paddle event that was taking place 150 mile to the North at Welton SC, it’s good to report that there were visitors from as far a field as Ardleigh, Deben, Broxbourne and Lancing to formulate.

Race one kicked off with Ian Mansfield (Ardleigh SC) shooting off the start line and around the first mark in pole position, closely followed by the Shuster trio (Deben YC). Up the beat father and son Shuster made use of the wind shifts to get themselves into the top two positions and then open up a gap between themselves and the pack. Roy Jones (Alton Water SC) worked his way up the fleet to secure 3rd behind Jonny Shuster following his Dad over the finish line.

The second race started similarly to the first with father Shuster following son round the first mark, before going on to overtake Jonny with the aid of some serious shifts up by the windward mark. Alan Simmons (Lancing SC) stormed up the beat to also overtake Jonny by the windward mark. Whilst Alan and Jonny battled it out on the long reach, Dave managed to put a bit more water between him and his pursuers. After narrowly passing Alan, Jonny managed to close the gap, but yet again failing to beat his father. Time out with a lunch break was needed.

After lunch, and with freshly renewed confidence after hearing there could be 4 races, and determined to conquer his Dad, Jonny stormed into the lead and opened up a substantial advantage over the fleet and his unfortunate Dad who had a terrible start! Alan Simmons, quick as ever got ahead of the pack and into 2nd only to be overtaken by a miraculous recovery from Dave Shuster on the last lap. Cathie Shuster, the only female sailor competing, with superb consistency secured a hat-rick of 4th positions that day.

The pressure was now really on for the 4th race, only a win would secure the victory for Jonny, anything less would mean that his Dad would prevail. Another promising start from Jonny and another dire start from Dave meant things were not looking good for the old man. However, similar to the 3rd race, he worked his way through the fleet again, but was not able to catch his son who sailed over the line in first to secure the overall victory, and no pocket money for another 6 months. Alan Simmons, with equal consistency to Cathie secured another 3rd position to take bronze.

Results Overall: 1st Jonny Shuster Deben YC) 6pts, 2nd Dave Shuster (Deben YC) 6pts, 3rd Alan Simmons (Lancing SC) 15pts, 4th Cathie Shuster (Deben YC) 17pts, 5th Ian Mansfield (Ardleigh SC) 20pts, 6th Roy Jones (Alton Water SC) 22pts, 7th Geoff Town (Broxbourne SC) 29pts, 8th Paul Cooper (Alton Water SC) 34pts, 9th Gary Pilgrim (TBC) 35pts, 10th Richard Stedman (Alton Water SC) 37pts, 11th Dave Taylor (TBC) 43pts

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