"TEAM" RACING BIT OF
A SET-UP AT
ANGLIA REGATTA
A biased report from Chris Wright K508

Several archive photos of correspondent Chris Wright...
(left) Chris 50 years ago as is depicted by the sepia. (right) A papparazzi photo snapped as Chris was leaving the beauticians at last year's Euros at Borkum. Note he still hasn't removed the mudpack.

A good weekend at Anglia despite unseasonable weather - grey and cloudy with the odd shower. The entry was disappointingly low but Mick Mitchell split us into four teams using the Club's Fed 5s and we had a series of 16 races, all teams sailing a race each in each of the four yachts.

I had the good fortune to draw Roger Leah in my team and eventually we won the team event. There should have been a final sail-off of the winning team's members against each other on the Saturday but we postponed it after one lap of a very athletic race because the wind had gone.

We sailed that on the Sunday morning and I won that too so that was a satisfactory outcome.

Robert "Two Puddings" Green was allowed to sail with us even though their team had come third, as our fourth team member was not there on Sunday. We only let him in as a "guest" because he had won all of his races on the Saturday, a result we attributed to the low standard of opposition in all of his heats (a claim which he strongly denied).

The rest of Sunday was taken up with races in out own yachts in an increasingly blustery wind.

Ray Thompson won the final two races using his storm sail and Mick Mitchell as Race Officer was keen for us to have a another race as Ray and I were by then on equal points, but we rebelled as all of us were knackered by then.

It was hard work sailing on the airfield in those conditions - not hugely windy but enough to make you have to work hard on the sheet rope.
Robert "Two Puddings" Green, one of the main perpetrators of team switching at
the Anglia Team Racing Regatta, shows no guilt or remorse for swapping sides
to assist Chris Wright and Roger Leah to win the Anglia event. Note the boot laces... it was thought hobbling Two Puddings while he was sleeping off his huge lunch (with desserts!) might put a stop to the terrible travesty of justice which occurred at Anglia.
Rare photographic evidence of the mastermind behind the Anglia "Team Switching Affair". Tom Leah, a close relative of Roger and Paula Leah, is well-known to Sailing Masters around the world. Tom is usually more content to work behind the scenes (or under the table) to undertake his cunning plans, rarely is he seen carrying out his devilish deeds. The above photo, snapped by our roving reporter, shows Tom in the surreptiously creating huge moon country and yacht-busting humps in the middle of the Cefn Sidan racecourse a month ago. Again the fiendish fellow was not apprehended - he scarpered behind his mum's sailing suit - but we're positive that he'll be brought to justice and, along with Two Puddings Green, get their just desserts!
[   B A C K   T O   T H E   P R E C E D I N G   P A G E   ]