Young Hadyn Sewell has done it again! Well done young man. This in from Tim, in his own words. Ed
Four sailors from Island Clubs travelled to Lymington on Sunday to take on 42 other young sailors from around the South Coast in the Harken Regatta Fleet Optimist Open 2012 and did the Island proud with an excellent set of results.
Leading from the front was Haydn Sewell (age 9) from the Royal Victoria Yacht club who won the event in style with four race wins out of four to take home the silverware.
Being able to discard the worst result in the four race regatta Haydn won the with a total of three points.
Great effort from all involved
Lily Ellis (age 11) from Gurnard Sailing Club who showed that consistency pays in sailing with two 7th and a 6th place to finish with 20 points in eighth place.
Following very close behind was her brother, Freddie Ellis (aged 8) with a great days sailing to score a 12th 10th and 6th to finish in 10th place.
Oliver Evans (age 9) who is a member of both the Royal Victoria YC and Gurnard SC, also had a good day on the water to score a 12th, 8th and 9th and finish the event in eleventh place overall.
Testing conditions
It was a testing day for all the sailors with strong easterly winds gusting up to 27 knots against the incoming tide making conditions very difficult.
Keeping their Optimist dinghies upright was a major challenge and there were numerous capsizes across the fleet and a number of retirements.
The Isle of Wight sailors all did a excellent job in coping with the worst that our summer could throw at them, with their sailing skills keeping them upright and sailing fast at the front end of the fleet.
For Haydn Sewell, having won the Regatta Fleet Open, he will go on to compete in the two day Lymington Open for the main fleet this weekend where he be competing against some of the UKs best Optimist sailors.
