Twenty two competitors travelled to the coast of North Devon to race in the Southern Championship in the Dart 15 Summer Series.

Dart 15 Association, Annual General Meeting 2023

Date 15th July 2023

Venue: Thorpe Bay Sailing Club 5.30pm unless advised otherwise

This year is the forty-fifth anniversary of the UKs best loved small cat and also heralded a welcome return to the name Dart 15.  The National Championships were held at Thorpe Bay Yacht Club in Essex and saw a very healthy entry of forty-six boats, including a strong showing from the home fleet.

With a fairly early start on Saturday morning due to the tides, the majority of the fleet arrived on Friday and some took advantage of a Coaching Session provided by Tom Phipps from Windsport International on Friday morning.

Eight Dart 15 travellers joined four members of the home club to compete in the picturesque setting of Carsington Water on the edge of the Peak District. 

August had been a wet and often wild month across Derbyshire but this race weekend saw baking hot sunshine but with it very light winds.  This led to testing conditions out on the racecourse with changes in wind direction, small pockets of breeze that competitors hoped to exploit and a high degree of concentration required to cross the finish line.

Grafham Water Sailing Club hosted the Gill Dart 15 Inland Championship 2023 over the weekend of 14th & 15th October, with a turnout of 19 Dart 15 sailors drawn to GWSC given a sunny & sometimes breezy weather forecast leading up to the event.  The ever efficient race officers & Dart 15 aficionados were Fiona & Nigel Denchfield assisted on the water by the renowned Grafham mark layers and rescue boat drivers/crews who between them put on a superb race course with swift race turnarounds and optimum racing angles.  6 races were scheduled with 3 each day, however the softening breeze made it an easy decision for race management to elect 4 races on Saturday & 2 on Sunday.

Started with a whimper and finished with a roar

The first day of the Dart 15 Sport National Championship started in perfect sailing weather with a flat, dark blue sea, force 4 and wall to wall sunshine.  Twenty-nine boats entered including eighteen from the host club.

The Dart 15 annual racing calendar comprises 5 Winter TTs, 2 National Championships and 5 Summer TTs.  This year’s summer events took place at Marconi, Rutland, North Devon, Carsington and Grafham.

Unsurprisingly, given the nature of our sport, the weather was a key feature of our Summer Series events again this year.  Last year, prolonged drought meant the tide was well and truly out at some of our reservoir locations which impacted that latter end of our summer season.

With a forecast of variable (5-10 mph) winds and sunshine, a pleasant day was on the cards for the nineteen entries to the first Dart 15 TT of the Winter Series.

The second event of the Dart 15 Winter Series took place at Rutland Water on Sunday 10th December.  Despite the 50 knot winds on the Saturday, there was a weather window in the forecast for Sunday which encouraged ten competitors to turn up and take part in the event.