St Ayles Regatta Report

What a day, what an atmosphere!!!!

Music and commentary via the Club’s new PA system. flags flying high on boats, beach and clubhouse. Old friends and new chatting, laughing and racing. What better way to spend the day.

Clubs gathered at Royal West last weekend from as far West as Largs, East as North Berwick, North as Anstruther and South as Bristol. Crews started arriving on Friday, some camping in the rear garden at the Club. By the time of the coxes brief at 09:15 there were seven clubs in attendance.

Racing commenced at 10:00 with the Open Women taking to the water. The course this year again was a time trial, starting with the batten in the timing container. However in the interests of safety and control the whole crew was already in the boat waiting, bow into the beach, just to the West of the middle slip. The boat then had to back away from the beach, turn to Starboard and race off towards the Whiteforeland Buoy. Having rounded that they then headed to the second mark off Roseneath Street. The final leg was from there back to the main beach at the Club where the batten then had to be run up to the timing container.

Club’s had plenty of opportunity to try different systems of backing the boats and turning, some of the more impressive results being amongst the women. There were also some interesting attempts at running up and down the beach without sandals, that had inadvertently flown off.

There was a clean sweep on the wins by Anstruther and North Berwick. However there were also some interesting results for Royal West with seconds in the 55+ Men, 40+ Men and 40+ Mixed. The team from Bristol, in their first ever competitive outing also produced some remarkable results with thirds in 55+ Men, 55+ Women & 55+ Mixed.

Full results, with times, can be downloaded below.
2015 RWSABC Regatta Results

The overall scores were as follows:

6th Equal 160 pts Carrick
6th Equal 160 pts Troon
5th 244 pts Bristol
4th 264 pts FoCCRC
3rd 332 pts Royal West
2nd 464 pts Anstruther
1st 528 pts North Berwick

North Berwick also recorded the fastest time of the day, with their 40+ Mixed crew covering the course in 11 mins 10 secs.

For the first time since we started hosting St. Ayles Skiff Regattas at Royal West the Colin Ross Memorial Salver did not got to St. Ayles CRC of Anstruther. Instead this year it went to North Berwick CRC.

A special presentation was made to the team from Bristol for their effort and determination in attending a regatta so far from home. They integrated very well, even taking part in composites. They performance on the day, finishing fifth of seven, having never attended a regatta before, was truly exceptional. They even went on to finish second in the quiz during the evening celebrations.

We have received a number of messages of thanks from the visiting clubs, as well as some incredible comments on social media, all of which are greatly appreciated by the organisers. The organisers would like to thank everyone for attending, the members & staff at the Club, also our sponsors AdLib Music of Jamaica Street in Greenock.

If you follow the links below to Facebook & Flikr you will see the photos taken by Bob Dawson, George Carson & Dorothy Campbell. There is also the photos taken by Leslie Roberts of Rosie Jake Photography.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=924165364306694&set=pcb.924166250973272&type=1&theater

https://www.facebook.com/george.carson.754/media_set?set=a.883883901665288.100001310600380&type=3

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134080931@N04/sets/72157656971171421

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.845700835521233.1073742537.204619306296059&type=3