Stellas at Mersea Week 2017
” Starting on Sunday 20th August, the 2017 West Mersea week was characterised by fair weather, light winds and a couple of very delayed starts which kept the courses short. Stellas had their own start as no Squibs had shown up and this allowed us a separate slot.
The first three races of the week counted as races 4, 5 and 6 for the Stella Championship and were hotly contested by the four Stellas racing: La Vie en Rose, Lodestar, Stella Lyra and L’Etoile. Despite some close starts, it was Tim Wood in L’Etoile who quickly established a dominating lead in the first beat of each race, leaving Mark Montgomery-Smith in Lodestar to try and prevent him from getting too far ahead and Trevor Spero in Stella Lyra and Peter Haldane in La Vie en Rose to fight it out for the third place.
In the first race L’Etoile was 1st, Lodestar 2nd and La Vie was third, Lyra having taken a different path. The second race on Monday gave the same result but with Lyra third. The third race was the same result for the first two places but with La Vie third, despite having been put about by a rather wildly sailed ECOD who retired.
Sadly, Lys of Slaughden and Stardust having entered, did not make it to the start line for technical reasons but Philip Waring got in on the racing on La Vie.
After the 3 Stella championship races and a lay day on the Wednesday for the ‘Round the Island’ race, the four competing boats stayed on for the Thursday and Friday races for honours for the week which were taken by L’Etoile first, Lodestar second and La Vie third, in the Friday race only 2 minutes behind Lodestar.
Despite a lack of wind, it was generally agreed to have been a thoroughly enjoyable week”
Peter Haldane