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Police Offshore Champs 09
Notts County Sailing Club members win Police Offshore Sailing Championships 2009
This year’s event was hosted by Sussex Police on the Solent between 17th and 22nd May 2009 and sponsored by the Police Credit Union. 24 Teams took part with representatives from across the country including the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Cleveland, Nottinghamshire and the Metropolitan Police. All teams sailed a standard Sunsail 39 boat with a crew of eight.
Racing started on the first day from Port Solent in Portsmouth and finished at Cowes. The wind on the first two days was a very testing force 5 gusting to force 7 with 5 races around buoys in the Solent. On the third day the winds dropped to force 1-2 with a race around the Isle of Wight sponsored by G4 Solutions. It was 60 miles and took 11 hours to complete by the winning boat, Notts A. Racing on days four and five was around marked courses in the Solent in ideal winds of around force 3-4.
The Nottinghamshire A boat was skippered by Pete Walters with Steve Payne on the bow, both from Notts County Sailing Club and improved through the series with results of two 3rds, two 2nds and five 1st finishes giving 9 points overall as clear winners.
This is the sixth year running Pete Walters has skippered the winning boat in this event and each year he has had at least one if not two crewmembers without any previous experience of big boat sailing. A significant achievement and also a major opportunity to introduce novice sailors to offshore racing.