Solo Open Meeting Report
Published 09:39 on 2 Jun 2026
In broken sunshine on 16 May, the Club hosted an 'Open Meeting' for the Solo Class. This is an event where solo sailors from other clubs are invited to join us for a day's sailing with four races. This year, record 28 boats entered of which 15 were club members and 13 were visitors. A gradient South West wind should have given an unusually consistent wind. In a light breeze, the first race set off with a pathfinder safety boat to help the visitors less familiar with the lake. It wasn't required as our local wiz, and last year's winner, Ian Matthews raced to a lead from, the start gun, followed by another local, Paul Gray - positions they held to the end. The places behind changed frequently with our Class Captain, Keith McQuillin being the one lucky enough to be in third when the music stopped.
The steady SW abandoned the fleet for Race 2, swinging for no explicable reason to Westerly.
A rejigged course for R2 saw Keith get away on a port flyer. Caught (quite literally) by a chasing pack led by visitor Nigel Bird; but again, it was Ian who again found his way to the front followed in by Nigel and Simon Lomas-Clarke (from Frensham Pond).
After lunch, the wind was still arguing between SW and W. With the course marks swung to keep the beats, the spacer mark after the first windward leg was in line with the leeward mark. Fraser Hayden (from Papercourt) led the fleet from our sailor Ben Schooling and Simon Derham (from Littleton). Ian was again wrestling his way though the fleet and was close on to Ben when he missed the spacer mark. Clearly, the pathfinder was needed even for us locals! He did the same the following lap and ended the race in 9th.
With four races, the best three count towards the overall score. So Ian's third race mishaps meant four sailors could still take the day's win away from Ian in the last race. After two false starts, a flag unusual for Spinnaker was shown at the 2-minute gun. The black flag was flown. This means anyone over the start line from the final minute to the start are disqualified from the race. That made everyone behave for the third attempt to start, but it wasn't one of the five series contenders who aced the start but Richard Ball from Chipsted. Despite this, it was the familiar face of Ian who settled in behind Richard. These two led the fleet round with another visitor, John Reed from Bough Beech comfortably in third.
So, Ian retained the title scoring 4 pts (1+1+2) followed as last year by Keith. First visitor was Fraser in third. Sailors from six different clubs filled the top 10 showing the health of the class across the South and Thames Valley.
Last updated 09:39 on 2 June 2026
