Arfie’s Race (Saturday 18th July) created by the Treneer family, is held each year to honour the memory of Arfie Treneer. Arfie was one of the founding members of the Working Boat Association and President for many years. A legend on the Fal river as an Oyster fisherman in the winter and sea fishing in the summer. Sailing was his life and he was probably the best racing buoy mark layer any race officer could ask for in his Cygnus 26 Fishing Boat, always in the right spot at the right time, such was his understanding of yacht racing.
The race is organised by his wife Sue, President of the Association supported by his daughters Becky,Sara and Mary with their families. With Arfie looking down on us and providing Champagne conditions for his race, B class turned out seven boats and C Class with five boats on the start line. The wind was Northerly 10 to 14 knots.
Mylor Yacht Club hosting this race set a start line on the St Mawes bank in the vicinity of Water Tower mark with a starting beat to Northbank Buoy then a reach to St Just, then back on to Sunbeam, before the first downwind leg to Castle Buoy. A good beat back to Northbank, run down to Castle for B and East narrows for C Class’before the final leg back to the finish line.
B Class had an unusual start with the bulk of the fleet off the pace allowing Sam Heard in Meloris to ‘shoot out of the blocks’ into the lead which he held all the way to the finish. Despite the wind not favouring the smallest boat in the fleet and being a light air flyer, Ian Jenkins in Stella kept up a consistent race. Come the finish on corrected time There was only eleven seconds between Meloris and Stella who held off Amy Creedon in Lola to third by one and a half minutes, close racing!!
In Class an early victim was Deliverance who lost her topsail sheet block which meant they had to remove her topsail, some 3 or 4 mins before the start, thus putting an end to her winning streak of good luck.
Off the start line, Iris Elizebeth showed once again her recently lost pace and shot out on the blocks with Juanita now flying her older but bigger mainsail, making a massive improvement to her speed, hot on the heels of Iris.
Throughout the race, Iris always managed to stay in pole position, but the next three boats Juanita, Lottie and Leila tussled for 2nd place, racing between these three boats was exceptionally close. On the first up wind beat, all four boats opted to take the Falmouth side to the beat to Northbank, that was until Deliverance, As ‘tail end Charlie’, decided to put a spanner in the works and opted for the short tack side up the St Mawes shore. Now with decisions on their hands, Leila and Lottie, not too sure who to cover, went up the middle, with the tide now almost slack, which side was paying? At times, Deliverance looked good against the other three, with the wind dropping slightly giving the three fully rigged boats an advantage. Juanita went hard left up the beat and it certainly paid off, bang a Corner as they say. Coming up the Trefusis shore, Juanita definitely came up leading her way to winning on handicap with Iris taking line honors
Corrected finish positions
B Class: 1st Meloris, 2nd Stella, 3rd Lola, 4th Moon, 5th Grace, 6th Rebecca, and 7th Winnie
C Class: 1st Juanita, 2nd Iris Elizabeth, 3rd Lottie, 4th Leila and 5th Deliverance.
Prizegiving
Price giving was held at Mylor Yacht Club and prizes presented by Arfie’s wife, Sue Trenear and family. The trophies were accompanied by bottles of the family brewery of Treens.
A major part of the prize giving is a special trophy presentation of ‘The Spirit of the Fleet’ presented by the family and based on votes tendered by the boats for who they consider each year to be rewarded for their help and ethos of the Working Boat Association.
This year a unanimous decision was the accolade went to John and Liz Maunder accompanied by Jeanette and Derek Hill, as the Race Officer John and his team for the fantastic work they put in manning their yacht ‘Melkin’ to act as Committee Boat. They start and finish the races, calculate results and turn up for the prize giveings and socials. Without them the Association would not function as it does, and they are pivotal to the fleet’s success which is too easy to take for granted.
John Mauder accepted the trophy of a fleet of silver model boats on a wooden base, Derek managed to snag the beer and Liz and Jeanette were presented with beautiful potted flowers.
So Congratulations to Team Melkin and everyone who turned out to support Arfie’s Race and The Spirit of the Fleet.
