Peterborough Building Society Salva

Charlotte Prior won the Peterborough Building Society Salva, her first sailing regatta, at Welland Yacht Club.
Helming a new National 12 for the first time, she made the most of the changeable wind conditions to win all three races.

In the first race it was Chris Prior (Laser) who got away from the line first followed by Tim and Nicky Wilson (Enterprise) with Charlotte's National 12 crewed by her father Andy a little distance behind.

The Priors quickly caught up the Wilsons but it wasn't until the final beat that they managed to overtake Chris Prior's Laser to take victory by a narrow margin.

The second race saw the wind drop, causing the fleet to change positions throughout the race, which was led for much of it by the Wilsons' Enterprise.

However, Charlotte managed to make excellent use of very light conditions to again pass the Enterprise and pull out a sufficient lead to take victory, but this time by only 30 seconds from the Wilsons on "corrected time".

Chris Prior managed to take third place from Ed Holliday, also in a Laser on the last leg.

In the third race Charlotte enlisted Danni Nundy (who joined the club as a result of the recent Open Day) to crew the 12 and the pair made an exceptional start in the very light winds.

They capitalised on this and continued to pull clear from the rest of the field and eventually finished seven minutes clear of the pack.

The other positions changed hands regularly with Chris Prior, Ed Holliday, the Wilsons and Andy Prior and Sam Nundy (National 12) all competing "on the water" with Beccy and Paul Wilson (Graduate) slightly behind them but in close contention on "corrected time". In the end Chris Prior took second place and the Wilsons third.

Overall, this gave Charlotte an impressive victory ahead of her brother Chris in second and Tim and Nicky Wilson in third. Fourth was Ed Holliday, fifth Beccy and Paul Wilson and in sixth were Andy Agar and son Sean in an Enterprise.

The only difficult decision for the Priors from now on will be who gets to helm the National 12 – father or daughter?

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