Norfolk Punt Championships 2024 at the Norfolk Punt Club
by Andrew Friend & Kath Mason 22 Aug 20:16 NZST
17-18 August 2024
On the 17th and 18th of August 23 crews gathered from across the country for the premier event in inland sailing; the Norfolk Punt Championships 2024 hosted by the Norfolk Punt Club on Barton Broad.
The Norfolk punt is a restricted development class representing over 100 years of evolution from the sail assisted clinker shooting punts of the late 19th century to the modern high performance race-boats of the present. The depth of history in the class was well represented on the water from the 1918 built 'Prawn' through to the 2023 completed 'Wahoo'. To account for the variations in design and vintage the boats race on a handicap basis allowing fair and competitive racing across the fleet.
Having towed or sailed out from Barton Turf staithe to the race area and Punt Club's floating clubhouse in the middle of Barton broad competitors were met with conditions not dissimilar to Marseille in early August... patchy wind coming from many directions fortunately accompanied with plenty of sunshine!
Race officer Kath Mason briefed the fleet, setting a course for the first race starting off the clubhouse and taking in most of the broad, whilst offering a few choices regarding which way to go around the island and level of risk to take with setting / holding spinnakers. The fleet all got off the line cleanly, with the faster Morrison design 'Blackbird' (Andrew and Robert Friend) making it to the windward mark in front of 'Razorbill' (Richard Parker and Robert Snelling) and a pack of close chasing hard chine design boats lead by 'Snow Goose' (Jane Pye and Karen Armitage). The big blue masthead kite on 'Blackbird' did help her get down the broad in good shape, only for the wind to start having other ideas and see the time and distance required by the faster boat to be gradually eaten up as they sat in a hole having rounded the Neatished mark. The remainder of the race went in a similar fashion, boats going then stopping as crews tried to stitch together gusts while the gradient and sea breezes did battle. By the finish 'Blackbird' was first to cross, however was closely followed by hard chines 'Snow Goose' and 'Redwing' (Rupert Reddington and Steve Macay), who incidentally may have crossed sooner had they registered the position of the finishing bouy in the briefing earlier.... In the end after handicaps had been applied Jane and Karen took the win in 'Snow Goose' followed by traditional boats 'Goldeneye' (Brian Wilkins and Kate Dulieu) and 'Prawn' (Bill and Alison Glover) in second and third.
For the second race Kath Mason and her team made a change of course opting for a committee boat start at the southern end of the broad, and in an effort to combat the spiralling wind direction, a revised course using what seemed like as many bouys as possible, this turned out to be a sensible solution as at least this way there would be some more tactical up and downwind legs!
Despite the wind shutting off with 2 minutes to go before the start the fleet got off the line (eventually...), this however was not the case for 'Decoy' who had anticipated the wind shift to perfection and executed a dream pin end start sailing off into clear air and the distance while the rest of the fleet were left in their wake. 'Blackbird' and 'Greylag' (Edward Clifford and Alex Stanley) managed to break from the pack to take second and third on the water, swapping these when handicapped in the final results. Very close racing once the wind did return lead to 'Snow Goose', 'Wahoo' (Simon Lomas Clarke and Robert Daniels) and 'Cormorant' (Bart Sawyer and Eliza Boulton) crossing the line within seconds of each other.
By the start of race 3 the fleet was getting to grips with the challenging conditions and blessed with some slightly stronger gusts allowing the twin string teams with bigger spinnakers some good opportunities to extend on the fleet and some (momentarily) effective apparent wind sailing. The pink hatted boys on 'Flamingo' (Johnnie Rudd and Wulfie) were quick to make the most of this with some impressive looking moments tearing down the broad. In the end 'Blackbird' sailed off using their kite on as many legs as possible to try to build as big a time buffer on the fleet as possible, finishing first across the line in front of a duelling 'Decoy' and 'Snow Goose'. In the end it was 'Decoy' taking the win, with 'Blackbird' and 'Snow Goose' second and third on handicap.
After 3 challenging races all the fleet packed up ashore (excluding the 1937 clinker built 'Gamecock' (Ruth and James Owen) who after sailing the last race of the day in submarine mode was duly left in the water overnight for the planks to swell) and headed for drinks on Barton Staithe.
Sunday morning dawned with anticipation of forecast fresher breezes. RO Kath Mason set a course accordingly this time finding even more marks to give crews a challenging course with very tactical comings together at multiple pinch points around the broad.
'Swallow 2' (Emma and William Daniels) timed the start of race 4 perfectly and were first off the line to pinch point number one at the Neatished mark, from here it was a race to get kites up and ideally out of trouble before downwind mark 2 and the next upwind 'R' unfortunately 'Flamingo' and 'White Eagle' (Jack Holland and Gavin Smith) didn't quite manage to get out of here unscathed ending up tangled round the bouy and opening the door for 'Prawn' to sail past. By the finish it was 'Blackbird' first home followed by 'Swallow 2', 'Decoy' and 'Woodpecker' (Matthew and Freddie Scott) crossing in close succession. Once handicaps had been applied 'Decoy' took the win with 'swallow 2' and 'Blackbird' second and third.
By the final race the excitement of a fresher wind had faded and the breeze had resumed the previous days form of spinning around with legs of the course changing wildly from close fetches to downwind sprints. At the start 'Blackbird' and 'Greylag' were quick to sail away from the fleet holding this up until the finish with 'Blackbird' first back, followed by 'Greylag', 'Swallow 2' and 'Grebe' (Chris Haslam and Hugo Hardy), final results being 'Greylag', 'Blackbird', 'Swallow 2' on corrected time.
After 5 challenging races it was 'Decoy' who came out on top with three first place finishes on their scorecard to be crowned Norfolk Punt Champions 2024, followed in second by 'Blackbird' and 'Swallow 2' in third. The hard chine salver for first hard chine design boat was won by 'Snow Goose', Cuckoo cup for first crew member under 18 went to 'Greylag', Broadshaven cup for traditional boats - 'Decoy' and Progress cup for fastest over the water went to 'blackbird'
In all a fantastic weekend of difficult racing was had and it was great to see such a range of boats out on the water along with a host of new (and older) faces. The next event for the punt class is the NBYC open meeting at Wroxham broad followed by the end of season Athene cup downriver race.