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Andy Partington and Tom Partington have won the International 14 Inland National Championships at Queen Mary

This year the Allegro trophy, hosted by Queen Mary Sailing Club, took on added significance as it also included the Inland National Championships, and provided the venue for the fourth event in the International 14 Traveller's series, The Crescendo Trophy.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny with a gentle eight knots over QMSC, although the breeze seemed to fade in concert with our sails going up. Eventually, after a two hour postponement and the wind clocking from the south east to the south west, a very variable six knot wind took hold and we were off. Starting a theme for the weekend, Archie Massey and Matt Critchley rounded the top mark in first, closely followed by Andy and Tom Partington, whose downwind pace enabled their to get in a position to gybe into the lead half-way down the run. Charlie Tavner and Ed Clay briefly took second before being outmanoeuvred at the finish.

Tavner then took the second race by cunningly running from last place without a kite, whilst the Partingtons reached off to the lake's edge, chasing a dying wind, never to be seen again. Actually, they did eventually re-overtake the two Classic 14s in the fleet!

The last race of Saturday was a classic. Massey infringed whilst attempting a late port-flyer. Meanwhile the leaders sailed away. On the final windward mark, Tavner rounded overlapped with Massey, who split gybes down the run to the finish. Partington - watching the pair of leaders fall into holes - gybed back down the middle to take his second victory.

The second day dawned with a lot more wind. But there were a number of overnight casualties; the Larkins to a second birthday party; the Beast as they forgot to bring their boat (a problem with shared responsibilities); Charlie Tavner managed to pull off his tiller, (too many two-handed bear-aways) and Mike Lennon to rescue boat duty.

This left a thin fleet, but it came down to a three-race match-race final between Massey and Partington, who carried a one-point lead from Saturday. In the first race, Massey used his team-racing knowledge to inflict a pre-start penalty on Partington and then defended his lead aggressively, narrowly winning by seconds and levelling the scores. The second start also involved a frantic pre-start, resulting in Massey capsizing, handing an easy victory to Partington.

The final race saw Partington trailing off the line but he passed Massey on the run as the first of many kite problems ensued aboard the orange boat. So the Partington father and son team took the win with Massey and Critchley finishing two points adrift for second place. The two Classics ended with three race wins apiece but by winning the last race, Mike Holmes and T. Smith won the Inlands from Dick and Hannah Johnson on tiebreak.

Results:

1-Andy Partington & Tom Partington 10
2-Archie Massey & Matt Critchley 12
3-James Middleton-Stewart & Alan Beeton 26
4-Mike Holmes & T Smith 29
5-Dick & Hannah Johnson 29
6-Charlie Tavner & Ed Clay 33
7-Matt & Geoff Larkin 54