International Canoes at HISC

Victory for Caldwell and Wood

Standard Canoe

With the forecast for good weather, an excellent turnout of ICs enjoyed the magnificent facilities offered by its ancestral home HISC. The battle on Saturday between Phil Robin, Simon Allen and Patrick Marshall was closely matched by that of the 'sea' versus 'gradient' breeze. These resulted in tight racing with place changes on every leg of the course. Phil's consistency resulted with him leading overnight.

Sunday dawned sunny, and the long sail to the start enabled the F3 sea breeze to materialise. Racing was again tight but Gareth Caldwell, possibly benefiting from the alcohol intake of the other sailors the night before, managed to take all three races and the overall Open.

Thanks must go to Paul Carpenter and his race team for running excellent back to back races, with true mile long beats, and minimal waiting in between.

1 Gareth Caldwell, Blithfield SC,4 8 1 1 1 1, 8
2 Mark Goodchild, Medway YC, 6 4 2 2 2 3, 13
3 Phil Robin, HISC, 2 1 3 6 7 6, 18
4 John Ellis, Scaling Dam SC, 5 9 6 3 3 2, 19
5 Simon Allen, HISC, 1 6 4 4 5 5, 19
6 Colin Newman, Draycote Water SC, 8 3 5 5 4 4, 21

Asymmetric Canoe

Sharing the same starts and beats with the standard canoes, made for great racing with the two variants of the class rivalling each other for the first boat around the windward mark. In the first race Robin Wood took the honours for the ACs by reading the tides brilliantly to lead at the first mark by a hundred metres.

However, Robin didn't have it all his own way with Steven Bowen taking a flyer on the last downwind leg on race two to just nip in and win by a boat length.

Race 5 saw Robin tack off on port at the start, leaving him well down the pan at the windward mark. He slowly reeled in the fleet to win by a nose from Alistair James.

1 Robin Wood, Sanderfoot SC, 1 2 1 1 1 1, 5
2 Steven Bowen, Abegaeron SC, 2 1 2 3 3 2, 10
3 Alistair James, Gratham Water SC, 3 3 3 2 2 3, 13
4 Andrew Biden, HISC, 7 9 Dnc 4 4 Dnc, 35
5 Rob Michael, HISC, 4 5 5 Dnc Dnc Dnc, 36
6 George Gyngel, HISC, 5 6 6 Dnc Dnc Dnc, 39


Mark Goodchild, Garath Caldwell,Steven Bowen & Robin Wood winners of the International Canoe Open at Hayling Island SC