2026 Snowball Pursuit Race
Twenty hardy souls braved Sunday's sub-zero temperatures for this year's Snowball pursuit race. Things were not looking promising during Saturday’s race preparations as the weather was truly abysmal; a fact to which Anna, Chris, Simon and Harry can testify as they set off to lay a mark in Payasu in conditions that were more akin to fishing for cod off the Icelandic shelf than the Walton Backwaters. All returned safely but with various degrees of hypothermia.
Sunday, however, dawned cold but sunny and with a lovely 15 knot breeze - perfect! First away from the club start line were the Fevas of Simon and Harry Willis and Poppy Kent and Poppie Usher, closely followed by Adam Kedge in his Laser Radial and Lotte Langfeldt in her Aero.
The Wayfarers of team Hooper and Jannicke/Penny were next to go ahead of the bunch of H2s sailed by Dom, Geoff, Arlo and Tom plus Torsten and Ella making their debut in an RS200. The RS400s of Tim and Nick, and Ed and Jen were next with Simon's Canoe bringing up the rear.
The course took the fleet down towards the marina and back followed by a series of loops between Winkle’s barge and a mark at the entrance to the Yacht Basin to provide some spectator sport for those sensibly ensconced in he bar. With the high tide completely covering the saltings and the wall of the boating lake, navigation became very much a matter of intuition, and keeping off the mud was not easy.
As the tension in the closing stages mounted and the faster boats slowly made their way up the fleet, it was clear that the H2s of Dom and Geoff were going to be the boats to beat. Dom had gradually pulled away and built up a comfortable mid-race lead but Parker steadily chipped away to close the gap until there was only a matter of inches between them. When the finishing gun sounded it was Dom Jacobs in first place, taking the Snowball Trophy, ahead of Geoff Parker by the narrowest of margins. Simon Hipkin managed to work his way up to third just overtaking Alex and Becci Hooper in the final minutes. Arlo Atkins finished fifth and won the trophy for first under 18.
Thanks as always must go to the race officers and safety boat crews for their support.
The winter series starts on Sunday 18th January.