Solution Inland Championship 2022 at Leigh & Lowton Sailing Club

Solution Inlands 2022 prize winners (l-r) Kathryn Clark, Iain Wilkinson, Peter Blackman © Martin Tubb

The 2022 Solution Inlands was very much a game of musical chairs. The first race was a taste of things to come, with almost everyone taking a turn in almost every position in the fleet. Except Peter Blackman. Peter refused to join the game with everyone else and led from start to finish. When the music stopped at the end of race 1, Paul "Basher" Nix was in 2nd and Phil Kemp took 3rd place.

After lunch, the place changing continued. Kathryn Clark, who was called back for being overkeen on the start line, steadily worked her way up to 1st, with local boy Iain Wilkinson hard on her heels in 2nd and Peter Blackman finding his worst position of the weekend in 3rd. By the third race, newcomer to the fleet Greg Aldred found his feet and took his place as race winner. Peter Blackman was 2nd and Iain Wilkinson took 3rd this time.

Another short break and the decision was taken to squeeze in a fourth race on Saturday afternoon as the Sunday forecast wasn't so favourable. Kathryn Clark led throughout the race only to be pipped to 1st place on the finish line by Iain Wilkinson. Peter Blackman took 3rd, just ahead of Greg Aldred. With a different winner for each race, only 3 points separated the top 4 positions overnight.

Over a delicious homemade curry on Saturday night, the close results made it all the more important that Greg was made aware of the 3rd-place rule (spoiler alert - whoever finishes 3rd overall has to write the race report!). A friendly quiz followed which was won by a team of Europe sailors including Phil Kemp's brother Faz; Phil assures us that his brother probably cheated and the moral victory is claimed by Team Solution who finished 2nd. The victors shared the chocolates with the whole room so any cheating was promptly forgiven!

It appears that Greg took the 3rd place rule warnings to heart as he took steps on Sunday morning to make sure that he didn't end up in third overall. That left Iain Wilkinson, Peter Blackman and Kathryn Clark battling in the top 3 positions for both races. Martin Tubb made his presence known with the front pack as well, and Kathryn toyed with letting him through - until a bit of mental arithmetic confirmed it wouldn't help her shake off the dreaded 3rd place. Iain took the fifth race from Peter with Kathryn in 3rd meaning any one of them could win the championship with the last race. In the end, it was Iain who took the honours, while Peter's consistency over the weekend meant Kathryn's 2nd place wasn't enough to squeeze past him in the overall rankings.

Peter's 2nd in the Inlands was enough to secure him the 2022 Travellers Trophy.

Thanks go to Race Officer Gareth and the whole team at LLSC, and to JJ Boats and Morgan Sails for providing the prizes.

Overall Results: