Guildford MYC’s Christmas holiday Marblehead open was this year sailed at Woking MYC’s sailing water at Goldsworth Park. A very gentle SW breeze blew straight down the lake with irregular variations 45 degrees either side, giving good beating and running conditions round a sausage course. Competitors from 6 clubs enjoyed 7 races in alternate fleets with Woking’s IOMs competing for the J Sails Trophy.

There were six different race winners, with Graham Batholomew overtaking Roy Pearson on the last leg to win Race 1. Race 2 was won by Roger Stollery, again chased by Roy. Occasionally the wind died completely and at the windward mark in Race 3 the whole fleet appeared to be rounding at once, but this time Roy who started at the port end had the inside overlap and pulled away to win from Colin Trower. Colin made no mistakes in Race 4 to win from Mark Dennis.

After a break for lunch, mulled wine and mince pies the wind was even lighter occasionally with insufficient strength to allow conveniently rigged jibs to goosewing off the wind. Swing rigs had less problem and Roger won Race 5 with his swing rigged Crazy Tube. However he was over the line in the next race and allowed Martin Houlton with his new conventionally rigged Constellation design pull away to finish with a big lead from Roger, who had overtaken the rest of the fleet. In the last race 7, the wind was virtually non-existent, but the Marbleheads were still making good progress round the course. Martin Crysell had his best race of the day, despite being over the line at the start, to win with his swing rigged Rok.

At the prize giving Guildford competitors thanked Woking for organising this event, in particular PRO Simon Jeffs and scorer Keith Monson for their efforts. Also appreciated was allowing Guildford members to race BOTTLE boats with the One Metres, which was much appreciated. Alan Viney distinguished himself by finishing in 5^th place overall by sailing with an extra tall rig on his BOTTLE boat 66.

1^st Roy Pearson Guildford Rok 15, 2^nd Roger Stollery Guildford Crazy Tube Too 18, 3^rd Colin Trower Hampton Court Starkers 25, 4^th Graham Bartholomew Chelmsford Rok 28, 5^th Mark Dennis Chelmsford Prime Number 33, 6^th Martin Crysell Guildford Rok 34, 7^th Paul Midgley Guildford Crazy Tube Too 36, 8^th Dave Andrews Hampton Court Prime Number 36, 9^th Martin Houlton Solent Constellation 39, 10^th John Torrance Chelmsford Paradox 41, 11^th Alf Reynolds Chelmsford Paradox 49, 12^th Mark Mortimore Guildford Roar Edge 73.