This year’s Gill Flying Fifteen Open meeting at Grafham Water SC also served as event two of the 2023 Southern Travellers Series. It was planned as a two-day event, 13-14th May. In the end the weather gods gave us a great day’s racing on the Saturday and a flat calm on the Sunday.

Fifteen fifteens entered, with some sailors having only just returned for the World Championships in Freemantle - good effort Ian Cadwallader, Bill Chard and Josh Preater! PRO Peter Curtis ran an extra (4th race) on the Saturday which turned out to be an excellent decision. All four races were windward leeward courses, which made for close, tactical racing in the average 8-10 knots NNE that we got for the day.

Race 1 was taken in fine style by the team from Aldeburgh Duncan Matthew and John Walker with John Hanson and Alistair Stevenson in second and local boys Simon Kneller and Ashley Painter slotting into third spot.

However, results-wise things were about to rapidly change as Flying 15 Johnny come lately new boys Ben Cooper and Richard Bundock suddenly got the hang of sailing a Flying 15 and posted 3 wins in a row. Now, we know Ben and Richard are very experienced sailors, but even so, this was a really impressive performance from sailors unfamiliar with a Flying 15, securing them the win overall.

The Aldeburgh team picked up two 2nd places after their win, to secure 2nd overall. That left the rest of the fleet squabbling for 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Grafham regulars Geoff Floyd and Colin Gilbert had a sensational first beat in races 3 and 4, leading round the top mark in both….so far ahead of us I’m not sure which way they took down the run, but anyway they took a great 2nd place in R4. This just showed that all the boats on the water had the pace to do well on the day, but it was critical to get the shifts right on the all-important first beat. In the end it was as tight as it could be for the 3rd spot with John Hanson/Alistair Stevenson, Ian Cadwallader/Simon Forbes, and Simon Kneller/Ashley Painter all tied on 10 points. After some mathematical tie breaking, it was John and Alistair in a well-deserved 3rd place overall.

So, well done to Ben and Richard winning the event and taking home the Grafham trophy for the Flying 15 Open – a lovely half hull model of a Flying 15 – don’t forget to bring it back next year guys!
After Round 2 of the Southern Travellers, Jeremy Valentine and Andrew Telford from Datchet Water Sailing are leading the series overall.

Huge thanks to the PRO Peter Curtis and the whole team at Grafham who made this such a successful and enjoyable event, with a special mention for Coxswain Andy Taylor for getting all the Fifteens launched and recovered so efficiently – we do hope to welcome even more 15ers back to Grafham next year. The event was sponsored by Gill who supplied some excellent prizes.

Finally, I must add a note of personal thanks to Tim O’Brien for letting us use his FF4084 for the event.
The full results of the regatta are below and more photographs of the event can be viewed at the Grafham Water SC Photo Gallery

Report by Simon Kneller

Photographs Copyright- Paul Sanwell/OPP


Sailed: 4, Discards: 1, To count: 3, Entries: 15, Scoring system: Appendix A

Sail_number	Helms_Name	Crews_Name	Sailing_Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total	Nett
3904	Richard Bundock	Ben Cooper	Grafham Water Sailing Club	(6.0)	1.0	1.0	1.0	9.0	3.0
3844	Duncan Matthew	John Chalker	Aldeburgh	1.0	2.0	2.0	(5.0)	10.0	5.0
4094	John Hanson	Alistair	RYA	2.0	4.0	4.0	(7.0)	17.0	10.0
4055	Ian Cadwallader	Simon Forbes	Chew Valley Lake	4.0	3.0	(7.0)	3.0	17.0	10.0
4084	Simon Kneller	Ashley Painter	Grafham Water Sailing Club	3.0	(7.0)	3.0	4.0	17.0	10.0
4042	Geoff Floyd	Colin Gilbert	Grafham Water Sailing Club	(9.0)	6.0	6.0	2.0	23.0	14.0
3794	David Philpott	Pippa Chapman	Grafham Water Sailing Club	5.0	(9.0)	5.0	9.0	28.0	19.0
4069	Bill Chard	Josh Preater	Chew Valley Lake	7.0	5.0	(8.0)	8.0	28.0	20.0
3726	Duncan Grindley	Jon Mortimer	Grafham Water Sailing Club	8.0	8.0	(11.0)	6.0	33.0	22.0
3969	Peter Card	Stephen Card	Cowes Corinthian	(12.0)	10.0	9.0	10.0	41.0	29.0
4011	Jeremy Valentine	Andrew Telford	Datchet Water Sailing Club	10.0	11.0	13.0	(16.0 DNF)	50.0	34.0
3873	Neil Bartholomey	John Montemayor	Middle Nene Sailing Club	11.0	(12.0)	12.0	11.0	46.0	34.0
3536	Angus Scott	Philip Snowdon	Datchet Water Sailing Club	(13.0)	13.0	10.0	12.0	48.0	35.0
4039	Sue Rhodes	Andy Rhodes	Grafham Water Sailing Club	(14.0)	14.0	14.0	13.0	55.0	41.0
4012	Jonathan Knight	Trish Knight	Grafham Water Sailing Club	(16.0 DNC)	16.0 DNC	16.0 DNC	16.0 DNC	64.0	48.0