Parsons sailing for a world championship berth (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Parsons sailing for a world championship berth

EXCITING news for South Cerney Sailing Club is that it will have two representatives competing for a World Championship berth when the third and final sector takes place at Brightlingsea over the last weekend in May.

Having finished third in the World Team selector two held at Christchurch at the beginning of the month, Cirencester's Elliott Parsons and his crew, Jenny Lennon from Frensham Sailing Club, are hoping to be one of the top seven boats selected to represent Britain in the World Championships in Belgium during August.

While Alex Shanahan won this event, Elliott and Jenny finished third and are now No 2 in the country, just four points behind Jody Green after the results of the first two selectors.

Some 93 boats from around the country, including five from South Cerney SC, gathered at Highcliffe Sailing Club, Christchurch for the second World Team selector six-race series on the weekend of May 3 and 4.

In race one, Elliott and Jenny, in Cadet 8519 soon showed their growing reputation in this class by leading at the windward mark.

Still leading down the reach with spinnakers flying, disaster struck after sliding down the side of a six-foot wave, Jenny lost her balance and fell out of the boat.

Elliott quickly capsized the boat so Jenny could jump in, but in the recovery they had dropped back to 20th. Over the rest of the race these two slowly pulled back through the fleet to finally finish in third.

In Race 2, Alex Shanahan from the East coast quickly established a lead, but Elliott and Jenny got into second place and started to cutt back the lead.

On the line, Shanahan won by a mere nine seconds after 65 minutes of racing with Elliott and Jenny taking that second spot.

Race 3 proved an exciting one with the lead changing hands several times before Stephen Videlo, from Waldringfield SC, triumphed.

South Cerney representatives at the top of the fleet were Joss Haslem, crewing 8291 'Aslan' in third and Elliott and Jenny in fourth.

Race four on day two saw that the two boats of Jody and Stevie Green from Essex and Elliott and Jenny had got away from the fleetway by the windward mark with the latter two recording their first win of the event.

As race 5 got underway, Elliott and Jenny maintained a top-ten place until the spinnaker got jammed when trying to hoist.

This lost them some places and they had their worst result of the weekend in finishing 17th.

With a quick lunch break the final race got underway as the wind began to drop again.

Elliott and Jenny led the final race but, in judging the tide wrongly on the second beat, allowed Lymington's Oren Richards into first place.

With the last beat being shortened to 100 yards, these two maintained their positions to finish in that order.