Phil Robertson takes out Doyle Sails Swedish Moth National Championship
The final day of the Doyle Sails Swedish Moth Nationals got off to a slow start with a postponement ashore whilst the race committee waited for the breeze to build. With 4 races scheduled the sailors were eventually sent out. After 30 minutes of low riding the breeze built nicely to 8-12 knots from the north.
Race 1 got under way with Fredrik Melson (DEN) taking the lead and never letting it go. Tom Johnson (AUS) was on the hunt, and both boats ended up overlapped at the finish with Melson taking the bullet.
Race 2 saw Tom Johnson, Kyle Langford and Dave Gilmour fighting for the lead, but some poor boat handling from Langford and Gilmour saw Johnson sail away to an uncatchable lead. Gilmour held on to 2nd place whilst Langford slipped back to 5th, allowing Danny Inkyov and Phil Robertson to sneak through.
No races after 1500 meant that the full schedule could not be completed so the race committee fired off the 7th race of the series, seeing a close battle between Phil Robertson, Dave Gilmour and Kyle Langford where the lead was constantly changing and it wasn't until the final upwind of the 3 lap course that Robertson edged ahead to take his 4th bullet of the championships and to secure the title.
Second place went to Dave Gilmour who sailed a consistent event, sailing his new Exploder with a new development Doyle sail. Kyle Langford rounded off the podium after discarding a DNF from yesterday's racing. First Swedish sailor went to Danny Inkyov (finishing 4th) who had some of the best boat handling out there throughout the variety of conditions that were seen.
In order add a bit more fun and incentive to the entire fleet, the sailors were split up into 3 groups using the seedings of the pre event exhibition series, which saw Phil Roberston take out division 1, Fredrik Melson finishing 5th overall took out division 2, and Adriano Petrino who finished 10th took the Doyle Sails prize for division 3 and the first female award went to Katja Salskov-Iverson using the unconventional 'Bat wing' sail designed for sailors under 70kg.
"It's great to have so many good sailors here racing in Sweden and hopefully we can use this momentum to help grow the class in the Nordic countries and get some more young sailors out on the water with us", commented Phil Robertson as he accepted the winners trophy.
Special thanks to GKSS and the volunteers for hosting and running the event and Doyle Sails Sweden for sponsoring the event.
Original text from Swedish Moth Association
Photos © Malcom Hanes
