Scottish Single Handed Championship and second Europe Scottish & North of England
Traveller series at Prestwick 19 - 20 June 2004

With the forecast promising a force 4 to 6 onshore wind, the first day of the Scottish Single Handed Championships and the second event on the Europe Scottish and North of England Traveller was going to be difficult from the start. Even getting off the beach and sailing to the start line proved taxing for many competitors. Europe sailors Gareth Williams, Greg Pitt and Pete Dowker launched for the first of the three back-to-back races on Saturday, but the sea conditions were almost too much for the visiting pond sailors, who were used too much flatter inland water conditions. The racing on Saturday was dominated by the strong onshore winds and big waves. Along with many in other classes Pete retired after the first lap, having found the downwind sections more than he was accustomed to. Then Greg suffered gear failure, leaving Gareth as the lone Europe survivor. After his first lap practising downwind wave sailing Gareth discovered that the conditions were, after all, no obstacle to completing the course and stayed out for the next three hours to finish all three races, finishing 33rd overall out of the 55 entries in race 1, improving to 18th in race 2 and slipping to 24th in race 3.

Sunday dawned a brighter day with a fresh northwesterly to start the final two races of the meeting. In race 4 Greg Pitt made more of the lighter conditions and with his better technique and boat speed prevailed over the other two Europes to finish a creditable 9th overall, with Gareth Williams finishing 18th and Pete Dowker 33rd . Gareth had to leave without taking part in the second race of the day. With the wind dropping further in the second race of the day, Pete Dowker recovered to finish 9th overall. Greg was unfortunate to be trapped by a time limit rule which meant that, although ahead of Pete after 3 laps, he had to complete a 4th lap in a dropping wind and so lost out in the calculation of Average Lap time to finish in 10th place, since this was a handicap event.

With Greg and Pete retiring on day one it was inevitable that Gareth took the Europe traveller honours with three firsts and a second to count. Greg Pitt showed that he will be a person to watch in the remaining meetings of the traveller which will be on more sheltered water. Pete Dowker's good place in the final race also showed his ability to sail his boat well in the right conditions.

Despite the complications created by the weather and the scoring system, each Europe finished one race ahead of the other two Europes. The sailors were fairly evenly matched and the later meetings will be an interesting test.

In the overall Scottish Single Handed Championship, Gareth finished 25th, Greg 34th and Pete 40th in a field of 54. The overall winner of the event was Neil Wilson from Holy Loch SC sailing a Contender, taking 5 straight first places. He has won the event five times since his first win twenty years ago.
Bess Homer in a Europe was third in the SSHC at Prestwick in 2001 and runner up at both Chanonry in 2002 and Loch Tummel in 2003. Bess is now usually found sailing her RS200 with another ex Europe sailor, Kirsty Dalrymple.

Brian Finnie GBR348 (with contributions from Pete Dowker and Gareth Williams)