K1 Scottish Championship at Loch Lomond Sailing Club, sponsored by Ovington Boats and Craftinsure

K1 Scottish Championship at Loch Lomond Sailing Club, sponsored by Ovington Boats and Craftinsure

by Jeremy Hudson 8 Oct 06:52 BST
5-6 October 2024

Sponsored by Ovington Boats and Craftinsure

The K1 fleet made a welcome return to one of its favourite venues of Loch Lomond Sailing Club as part of their Keelboat weekend. The big learning is ‘don’t listen to the forecasts!’, which were entirely different, whichever service you chose to look at, and varied from flat calm to gusts over thirty knots.

The only thing consistent in the forecast was rain all weekend. However, Loch Lomond turned up trumps and there was no rain during the daytimes and we were graced with 8-20 knots all weekend. As usual, the hospitality and friendly welcome were delightful and the Saturday dinner with 120+ seated for three courses was legendary. For those that have not attended this keelboat weekend, you have missed an iconic sailing event and should make every effort next year.

Saturday started with a very light breeze which died completely upon launching, however, Race officer Paddy Adler held his nerve and after a shortish wait under AP, we were rewarded with 8-15 knots wind settled from the SE. The Sun even came out briefly. The K1’s were rewarded with close match racing at the front and Richard Sims and Jeremy Hudson showed the AC fans some proper old fashioned match racing with pre start hunting and dial ups followed by long tacking / Gybing duals until they got so dizzy they had to keep going in the same direction to recover. Honours were pretty evenly spread and it should be noted that local boy Fergus Duncanson and previous Scottish Champion Mike Deane were having their own similar match racing frenzy. All in all an excellent days sailing Triangle / Sausage courses around Milarrochy bay with Jeremy just holding the overnight lead by the narrowest of margins.

After some rain overnight, the day dawned fresh and dry, with a steady 10-20 knot breeze from the East. The plan for the K1’s on Sunday was a tour of the Loch with large islands as the course marks! The race was to be stopped half way round and restarted to provide 2 results. This provided some wonderful sight-seeing and some snakes and ladders racing as sailors tried to decide the best tactics of how far away from the lee of the islands you needed to pass, in order to avoid the swirling wind eddies and doldrums! This provided plenty of place changing and everyone had their moments of glory at the front of the pack. Sometimes it paid to be last, in order to see what was going on ahead and pick a better route through the Doldrums as proved by local boy Fergus, who went from last to 100M in the lead in the blink of a headland rounding. Definitely a change from normal round the cans racing and a great way to see the spectacular scenery provided by Loch Lomond… just a pity that the high peaks (largely called Ben XXXXX) remained largely invisible shrouded in the clouds! Somehow, probably more Luck than Judgment!, Jeremy managed to find his way to the front in both races, rewarding him with his first Scottish championship trophy.

Overall Results: (top three)

1st Jeremy Hudson

2nd Richard Sims

3rd Fergus Duncanson

In the traveller series, this leaves it tied at the top between Richard and Jeremy with all to play for in a winner takes all showdown for our final event at Broxbourne Sailing Club on the 26th October. Entries are filling fast so ignore the forecasts and enter early.

Many thanks to Loch Lomond Sailing Club for providing such a fun, friendly, unique and well run event and we look forward to returning for another battle on the Loch next year. Our next event is our end of Season event and prize-giving at Broxbourne on 26th October. As ever, our thanks to Ovington Boats and Craftinsure for their generous sponsorship of our traveller series.