Laser SB3 sailor Craig Burlton had a double celebration last week in Falmouth when he celebrated his birthday midway through winning a hotly contested SB3 UK National Championship. In topping the near seventy-boat fleet, past European Champion Burlton, saw off challenges from perennial dinghy and sportsboat champion Mike Budd and reigning SB3 World Champion Geoff Carveth. Reflecting on his championship win which he achieved with a race to spare, was quick to praise his crew, Adam Heeley and the enigmatically nicknamed ‘AB’ (Steve White). ‘The competition in the fleet is getting tougher all of the time. Every regatta seems to have more teams making their presence felt at the front. The SB3 is easy to sail but requires a real team to race well. I’m very fortunate to have Adam and AB to sail with. They always manage to be calm and focused with similar attitudes and goals. They make even the bad days enjoyable – most of the time anyway!’ 

The event itself was near faultless and the organisers at the Royal Cornwall YC and the class association should get a collective pat on the back for their seemingly effortless ability to cope with the logistical challenges of such a large fleet. The courses were good and the racing well run and the race team did particularly well to get a complete series in given a rather tricky weather forecast. I am sure that the first two days of sunshine, eighteen knots of breeze and monster Falmouth waves will live on in the collective class memory for some time to come.

The SB3 Class with some help from Laser Performance, has made some stringent efforts over the last year or so to resolve the issue of a wide variation boat weights. The class now has an official minimum weight and a selection of the fleet was weighed during the launching process in Falmouth. I spoke to newly crowned National Champion Craig Burlton to find out his thoughts on the weight issue and ask why he had chosen to swap his original Europeans winning boat of a few years ago for an older model. This is what he had to say:

‘My previous boat was 3200 and although we used it to win a predominantly light airs European Championship a while back, it just seemed to struggle in any breeze. Prior to the nationals a couple of years ago, we did a bit of weighing and found that it was nearly 80kg heavier than some other boats. I believe it was simply that a bad batch built and the new class rules along with the manufacturer’s improved quality control have now sorted these issues out. However at the time we felt we could not possibly go to that event with the mental baggage of sailing a heavy boat, so bought the only old boat that was available at the time. It seemed that most of the guys beating us were sailing in boats pre 3072 so it was sensible to take that issue out of the equation and go down the same route. The boat I bought was 3042, which had not been sailed much so just needed a small amount of tidying up to get it race ready. We have since put a new rig on it but besides that she needed very little work. The boat feels great and we no longer have to continually defend down wind.’

Craig went on to say that based on recent results the more conventional view that new equals ‘stiff’ which equals ‘fast’ is now prevailing in the class, as many of the top boats are new ones. Certainly the results at the Nationals bear this out with only four ‘old’ boats in the top fifteen. All that said, Burlton’s final comment was ‘We’re pretty happy with our current steed so won’t be looking to trade her in any time soon!’ Second placed Mike Budd sailing 3475 Zimmer, the thirteenth newest boat in the fleet, was blisteringly fast all week and clearly had no concerns about his boat. In an uncharacteristically sentimental comment he told me ‘Surprisingly for us we seem to have bonded with Zimmer. We are really quite fond of her now so we will be keeping hold of her for the foreseeable future.’

 
 A great final touch from the Championship organisers in Falmouth was the thought and preparation which went into the prizegiving at the final night dinner. Often this can be an anticlimax and only really of interest to those ‘in the chocolates’. This however was a return to an old school awards ceremony where the presentation of the trophies was preceded by several spot prizes for those teams (arbitrarily) adjudged to have embarrassed themselves during the regatta. Each of the miscreant crews was hauled before the cheering audience for some good mannered ridicule and warm hearted ritual humiliation. Jamie Lea, Simon Osgood and myself were first in the firing line for leaving the dock with our newly repaired main still lying on the pontoon. We only motored a few boat lengths before sheepishly turning back but his is a tough class on and away from the racecourse and our cock up had already been spotted and logged by eagle eyed class administrator Katie Ashworth.

One by one the other offenders were called up to receive their just desserts from a delighted audience. Among them, Geoff Carveth was given a speeding ticket for sailing his Moth at twenty plus knots in the harbour, Daniel Geoghegan fined for trawling his kite without a fishing licence, David and Roger Hudson for delaying the start of a race for half and hour when they entwined themselves with the pin end rib and Guy Jackson for allegedly causing the closure of the local mussel beds by his actions during an inter-race ‘comfort break’. All in all it made for a memorable prize ceremony and I can see this sort of thing being written into the class regatta rules from now on.

The SB3 Championship focus now moves on the 2009 World Championship in Cascais where competitors should be able to look forward to some real big wave and wind conditions. The Budd and Burlton battle looks set to continue and Mike has already warned Craig that he will be gunning for him out in Portugal. With most of the other top UK crews (including the reigning champion Geoff Carveth) also be making the Continental road trip to do battle with the best of the mainland European fleets the scene appears to be set for spectacular World Championship showdown.