Competitors from as far afield as South Wales and the East Coast converged on Queen Mary SC for the final event of the B14 TT Series, the Inland Championship. We were sharing the venue with the Cherub fleet.

Following a series long battle, three boats - Ullman Sails (Mark Watts/ Kathy Sherratt), Neil Pryde (Mark Emmett / Allan Stuart) and Seavolution (Barnsie, sailing with local super-sub Alex Jones) were in still contention for the overall TT Series going into the event, with many other sub-prizes also up for grabs.

On Saturday the wind eventually rose to a gentle 4-5 knots - staying just above kite collapsing strength and much to the liking of the reigning Inland Champions the Anthill Mob (Tim Harrison & Jonny Ratcliffe), dusting off 758 for a first outing since the Nationals.

Race 1 started as real drifter. In these conditions weight proves not to be a penalty upwind and as the entire fleet converged as one on the windward mark heavyweights Barry and Al in 766 found themselves in 2^nd. Downwind and Cherub traffic put paid to that with the result closely contested between Neil Pryde, The Anthill Mob and Ullman Sails, the latter found a good lane down the final run to sneak the win from the Anthill Mob and Neil Pryde. Race 2 saw the Anthill Mob take a more convincing win with Neil Pryde in 2^nd and the Seavolution pairing starting to gel in 3^rd after a close battle with Team Marlow (Dan Cowin & Dan Hollands), Sabre Sails (Simon Brewer and Alastair Ramsden) and the Raynes Bros, showing good form in 742. Ullman Sails had a race to forget, languishing in 11^th.

Rhys and Gareth in 775 reminded the fleet of their strong starting skills to lead Race 3 down the first run; however it was to be Blue Badge (Mike Bees and Ferret) who showed their class in this race, after an otherwise low key start to the event. The Anthill Mob were ever present in 2nd to lead the event overnight from Neil Pryde.

The fleet went for a night out down the road in Shepperton, finding the best value carvery in the world with many teams choosing the supersize portion option that would make an American proud, despite the continued light wind forecasts for Day 2.

Sunday dawned clear and sunny, but even more windless than Day 1. A postponement followed which gave everybody at the event some time to reflect and observe onshore the scheduled 2 minute silence for Remembrance Sunday. The wind eventually filled in from the west with about 5 knots allowing an eager Race Officer to get us underway.

Race 4 got away at the second calling, unfortunately without Declan and Gary, whose ship had to be escorted to shore after being unfortunately holed in some start line argy bargy with a number of over eager starters, leaving them unable to build on strong Saturday showing.

The Anthill Mob gave a demonstration of light wind sailing to the fleet taking out races 4 and 5. Ullman Sails led the chasing pack in race 4. Team Marlow took up the challenge in Race 5 breaking clear of the pack to make Tim and Jonny work a bit harder. Blue Badge were showing consistency with two 3^rd places.

Neil Pryde and Seavolution were having a tougher day at the office having to battle their way through a very competitive middle of the pack.   TT returnee Don Forster (744) was having fun sailing with Sarah who was doing a great job in the tricky conditions in only her fourth time dinghy sailing ever.

The wind faltered somewhat for the final race which was shortened to three laps. The Anthill Mob, Blue Badge and 694 (Al and Rory Moppett) pulled clear of windward mark carnage as the main contenders. The leading two extended to finish in that order and secure the first two podium places for the event.

694 fell into the clutches of the closing pack in the testing conditions. Seavolution took third with Neil Pryde pulling off a notable recovery job to pinch fourth from Ullman Sails which was enough to net them third overall in the event.

As the fleet quickly packed up in sunset Mark Emmett and Allan Stuart reflected on another consistent performance which had netted them title of TT Series winners for 2012.

The weekend however belonged to Tim and Jonny who were a step ahead of the pack.

Thanks to Queen Mary Sailing Club for hosting our season finale.

The fleet look forward to joining in with the winter series events for the Sail Juice Series ahead of an exciting 2013 season, the highlights of which will be the National Championships at Whitstable Yacht Club in May and the World Championships at Plerin ( Brittany) in July.

Sailed: 6, Discards: 1, To count: 5, Entries: 14, Scoring system: Appendix A