Espada again

Louise Morton takes home the Women's Open Keelboat Championship for a second year

The second Women’s Open Keelboat Championship last weekend proved as exciting as the inaugural event last year. Louise Morton’s Espada won the overall Championship trophy, once again provided by Coffin Mew solicitors. J-Dream came second and Coffin Mew with J/UK was third. The event was again hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club at Hamble.

140 women crewed at WOKC this year, including Marie-Claude Heys, Lucy Burn, Colette Blair, Charlotte Lawrence, Liz Savage, Sarah Allan, Ursula Bagnall and, of course, Louise Morton.

Competitors were set imaginative and challenging courses mainly windward/leeward in nature. The final race encompassed a windward mark rounding of West Knoll buoy close to the Brambles bank down tide at low water, encouraging navigational and tactical decisions. Conditions were consistently light for the first day providing an agreeable introduction for the relatively light crews with the wind between 6 and 11 knots whereas on the second day the wind rose up to 17 knots. Six races were completed in two days.

J-Dream dominated the J/109 fleet from the start despite the slight hindrance of pink tutus and legwarmers as their chosen crew uniform! They won four out of six races and therefore the overall class by 7 points from their nearest competitor. Further down the class Gillian Ross’s boat Team Breast Cancer Care had a scratch crew some of whom joined only 12 hours before racing began. Gillian took home the fantastic Dubarry of Ireland bronze boot as winner of the Spirit of the Event Award. Gillian’s boat was branded for Breast Cancer Care and her efforts in supporting the event, giving women new to sailing a chance to compete, and fundraising for the chosen charity were all well recognised.

In the IRC fleet Espada won the first race by 4 minutes and everyone wondered how a challenge could be made to their authority. However Coffin Mew with J/UK and Starspray presented them with cause for concern as the races went on, so that by the penultimate race Starspray was less than one minute behind Espada on corrected time and on the last race Coffin Mew with J/UK were only 30 seconds behind. Had there been a third day’s racing, Espada might have been knocked off their first place spot!

Louise Morton is a fantastic ambassador for the Women’s Open Keelboat Championship. One of her crew, Nicky Bethwaite, attended in 2008 and arranged her visit from Australia to England this year in order to make sure she could race in the event again. Louise and her crew were delighted to win the superb race prizes from Dubarry of Ireland. Louise said, “really we are just four middle aged housewives from Cowes though we do have two girls on board young enough to be our daughters so the young blood helps! All the crew are so pleased to receive prizes of Dubarry deck shoes and the new Newport boots. Peter Bateson at the Royal Southern Yacht Club set superb courses and that of course is the essence of a truly excellent competition. The Coffin Mew championship trophy will return to my fireplace this year but I was really impressed by our challengers and who knows what may happen next year. With only 30 seconds in it there is all to play for next time!”

Emma Beagley, one of the event organisers, said “It was great to have so many “famous” Solent sailors out racing with us this weekend. Equally we had many women sailing who had limited sailing experience and scratch crews on steep learning curves. We have all had so much fun ashore and afloat with the Royal Southern Yacht Club and we look forward to seeing everyone again in 2010.”