Solway Yacht Club hosts Borders Grand Prix and Palnackie Pursuit at Kippford

As the 2024 sailing season moves into its later stages, it was a busy weekend in Kippford.

Solway Yacht Club hosted the ILCA Laser Lakeland and Borders Grand Prix open meeting, and alongside club racing on Saturday there was a special day of Laser coaching and the re-running of the Palnackie Race on Sunday.

With the glorious Indian summer weather still holding, competitors from north and south of the border joined club members for the ILCA Laser event.

The ILCA Lasers are split into three separate divisions with different rig and sail dimensions in each.

The full rig ILCA7 boats were joined by the popular Radial ILCA6 types and predominantly younger competitors sailing with the 4.7 rig, the ILCA4s. With a planned three race programme, principal race officer, John Broadbent and the race committee anchored the committee boat opposite Rough Island and racing was soon underway.

The full ILCA7 of Greg Liggins from Derwent Reservoir Sailing Club set the pace followed by Solway member Simon Wilson and Richard Benson of Beadnell SC in their ILCA6 Radials, although Richard was unfortunate and did not finish.

Solway Yacht Club Cadet champion, Toby Iglehart, in his 4.7 was keeping pace with most of the Radials making for a very competitive race.

Race two and again, Greg led but now it was Simon Wilson having an incredibly close race with another Solway member, Finlay Train, only settled in Finlay’s favour in the last few moments when he tacked onto a favourable windshift, gaining the few extra metres to get to the line just ahead of Simon. Again, Toby was well up with the other Radials, although Finn Harris in his Radial wasn’t that far astern for much of the race.

The final race made it three wins in a row for Greg