Tiny boats on a huge lake in a strong breeze gave challenging conditions for both organisers and the eleven enthusiastic Footy sailors. Many travelled from all over the country to the first of the 2008 Footy open meetings at Guildford Model Yacht Club's Abbey Meads Lake near Thorpe Park, Chertsey on 3rd February 2008. In freezing cold conditions the Club's market stall shelter was airborne on many occasions, but fortunately the restraining ties held! The 12-20 mph southerly winds with sharp gusts up to 25 mph built up big waves for these one foot long open class boats weighing just over a pound. Remarkably, most were able to put up amazingly good performances both up and downwind. With the boats being so light, tacking could be difficult particularly in the gusts, but gybing round provided a perfect alternative for some of these highly manoeuvrable boats that can ‘turn on a sixpence’.

16 races were sailed, initially over a triangle and sausage course, but later PR0 Martin Crysell shortened this to a simple upwind and downwind course parallel and near to the operating bank. There was plenty of close racing and lots of lead changing, as the big waves and gusts sometimes slowed windward progress or led to broaching off the wind.

Race 1 was won by Guildford’s commodore Paul Midgley sailing a hard chine swing rigged 'BUG', to the basic MYA plan, with 8 year-old Cameron Vice in 2nd place sailing a conventionally rigged Ricky Webb '12 INCH' design. This is the MYA chine kit boat he won at last year's Footy Championship, modified with a bigger jib. Race 2 was won by Michael Van Der Peet sailing the ultra lightweight narrow Angus Richardson MOONSHADOW design using a McCormack balanced una rig. This uses torsion in the mast support to flex and reduce gust impact on the boat, so that the rig heels before the boat! See the photos of boats 113 and 99.

The next two races were the start of Roger Stollery's dominance of the top two places with his powerful beamy double chine ANT design powered by a simple swing rig and lightweight polythene double surface sails. However he didn't have it all his own way as Races 5 and 6 were won by Gary Sanderson with his round bilged DUCK design also powered by the flexible balanced una rig and double luff Argos bags! The fleet always made a colourful sight!

After lunch all boats were going better as skippers learned how to get the best out of their tiny lightweight boats in these awkward conditions. In particular the big waves in the lulls killed all the speed when going to windward and boats bobbed about frustratingly slow and uncontrollable. However, Roger’s ANT suffered less than most and only lost three of the next ten races letting Gary Sanderson win Race 11, Paul Midgley Race 14 and Cameron Vice the last race.

A beautiful, unusual and appropriate perpetual foot/sail 'Toephy' especially designed and carved from apple burr by Fred Shepherd, Guildford Club's top skipper of the late 1960s, was presented to the winner and was received with much delight, amusement and admiration. With this report is a picture page showing Fred and the making of this special trophy. The prizewinners, including the first four, furthest travelled and last place thanked GMYC and PRO Martin Crysell in particular for organising an excellent event.

It was very interesting from a design point of view as lots of very different hulls, rigs construction and gear were competing and succeeding. The most basic MYA kit, Ricky Webb’s 12 INCH, nos 48 and 44 were going well with 48 winning the final race and 8 places in the top 3. The standard BUG to MYA plans borrowed by Paul, who had not raced a Footy before, also won a couple of races and had only 3 counting races out of the top 3. These are basic, but well sorted boats that handle well and were able to sail round the course without too much difficulty. These are boats in the order of 700 grams with standard radio gear and about 275 gram ballast. My ANT design is of similar construction, foils and ballast to the BUG made from corrugated polypropylene joined with insulation tape, but has smaller servos and lighter swing rigs, sailing at about 600 grams. It was always fast and pointed high to windward. With the BUG it represents the ‘Goliath’ of Footys. Gary’s DUCK is more moderate, a nice round bilged shape, sailing on about 475 grams with about 180 gram ballast. It goes very well with the best sorted of the McCormack rigs with a beautifully shaped polythene sail. The results were similar to the BUG’s, but with one more win. Angus Richardson’s baby, MOONSHADOW, represents the ‘David’ of Footys sailing at 335 grams with 215 gram ballast. Compare the opposites, David 99 and Goliath 97, sailing together in one of the photos. It had flashes of speed to windward, but appeared to suffer when tacking in the stronger winds etc. It was obviously not easy to sail consistently, but it is early days yet for skipper Michael Van Der Peet! One other rig that looked good was Russell Potts’ balanced una rig that didn’t rely much on torsion. Instead it had a rotating plywood yard into which was stuck the raking mast. This has dark green sails in the photos. It needed to have a series of holes to get the centre of effort moved back for the smaller rig, but looked very good on the PIPSQUEAK hull. It was great to see Russell back in a competitive event after several years absense and his results only needed a few technical problems sorted out!

We all had a problem was in the lulls when the rigs appeared to lose drive and the waves stopped progress. It appeared worst for the balanced una rigs. Might it not be a good idea to fit a leech line on the main to prevent the leech closing up in the lighter air? This is the technique used on the mainsails more flexible Marblehead swing rigs and the jibs of most top models. However this may also be a problem that could be partly solved by sailing technique.

Just one more point. At registration all boats were measured in ‘the box’ with their small rigs. This was useful for the few owners who had non-compliant sheet leads, or over length small rig masts. It also highlighted a problem with diagonally measured boats, where both the measuring box and such boats need to be spot on. If the box diagonals are less than 341.24mm (or the boat more than this figure) there is likely to be a problem, quite separate from the need for the rudder to turn as if sailing, without impinging on the box sides