Ajax Class Captain’s Report for 2018

Social

The early part of the year was punctuated with three class lunches at the club, all with reasonable numbers attending and enabling some non-sailing past class members to join us and keep in touch.

Sailing

12 boats have launched and raced this year, with eleven competing in the spring series, 12 in the summer and 12 in the autumn series. This is an improvement on 2017 and in addition two boats were launched but have not raced. This compares well with St Mawes who also had a small increase with 14 boats competing in their Thursday evening racing. Polly Oliver won in the spring, Thunderer in the summer and Guillemot in the autumn. Thunderer won a closely contested short sharp series, and Guillemot the regatta. The East Coast Championship’s was also closely contested with Thunderer managing a win in a nerve wracking winner takes all final race.

In the club points series, there were seven different boats winning races, with a seventh winning the short sharp series, and an average turnout of 6.5 – again an improvement on 2017.

Championship

Two boats travelled to Falmouth for the championships. One day was lost to strong winds and Polly Oliver elected not to race on the last day when winds were still very strong. Telamon secured sixth place. Polly Oliver stayed on for Falmouth Week and won both the main week and the St Mawes series with a day to spare.

The East Coast Championships was run with less resources and returned a small surplus to the club. A second rib will be used for mark laying in 2019 for the national championships.

Boats for Sale and New Members

There remain a number of boats for sale, with two advertised on the Club’s website.

This year we welcomed Richard Meriwether and Mark Ingram to the fleet with Orwell VI (formerly Widgeon). They have proved to be competitive from the start and we look forward to seeing them more often in 2019.