Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey retain their lead after two more races at the Merlin Rocket 2019 Nationals.
Birrell and Brearey lead with 4 points, six points ahead of Nick Craig and Toby Lewis, with Jon Gorringe and Pete Gray in third place with 14 points.
In the first race of the day for the Beecher’s Cup, Craig and Lewis extricated themselves from an average start and headed into the right hand corner to lead around the top mark.
Defending champions and race one winners Birrell and Brearey were soon engaged in a race long battle with Craig and Lewis.
Going onto the last sausage Birrell and Brearey had just gained the upper hand, but Craig and Lewis were able to gybe into pressure to retake the lead at the leeward gate and take their first win.
Ben and Roz McGrane, took a strong third ahead of the Chrises Gould and Kilsby who had replaced their broken mast and were none the slower for it.
For the second race for the Clyde Quaich Trophy, the breeze was switching around a bit as some rain clouds passed the course.
Birrell and Brearey went right initially but them crossed back in the leading bunch to pick up a leftie at the top and lead around, and continued on to take their second win.
Gorringe and Gray took second with Gould and Kilsby third and looking good once the discard removes their DNF from race 1.
Merlin Rocket – Aspire 2019 National Championship – Leaders after Race 3
1st 3788 Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey 1 2 1 – – 4 pts
2nd 3776 Nick Craig and Tobytastic Lewis 3 1 6 – – 10 pts
3rd 3791 Jon Gorringe and Pete Gray 2 10 2 – – 14 pts
4th 3684 Andy Davis and Pippa Kilsby 5 5 7 – – 17 pts
5th 3722 Roger Gilbert and James Stewart 13 6 4 – – 23 pts
6th 3802 Simon Potts and Ally Potts 6 13 5 – – 24 pts
7th 3712 Ian Sharps and Alex Warren 7 11 10 – – 28 pts
8th 3739 Ben McGrane and Roz McGrane 14 3 12 – – 29 pts
9th 3764 Tim Fells and Fran Gifford 11 16 8 – – 35 pts
10th 3736 Roger Phillips and Will Crocker 9 14 19 – – 42 pts
11th 3658 Chris Jennings and Chris Martin 8 24 15 – – 47 pts
12th 3726 Will Henderson and Arthur Henderson 4 20 24 – – 48 pts
13th 3766 Andy Dalby and Pete Horn 20 15 13 – – 48 pts
14th 3673 Caroline Croft and Tom Lonsdale 16 22 17 – – 55 pts
15th 3795 Alex Jackson and Mary Henderson 15 19 23 – – 57 pts
16th 3796 William Warren and Rachel Rhodes 22 9 27 – – 58 pts
17th 3742 Pete Ballantine and Rob Allen 15 25 18 – – 58 pts
18th 3759 Sam Barker and Megan Pascoe 31 12 16 – – 59 pts
19th 3774 Jon Turner and Richard Parslow 26 17 22 – – 65 pts
20th 3777 George Yeoman and Sophie Yeoman 24 21 26 – – 71 pts
21st 3709 Rob Henderson and James Ellis 21 23 28 – – 72 pts
22nd 3803 Chris Gould and Chris Kilsby DNF 4 3 – – 73 pts
23rd 3801 Matt Biggs and Beka Jones 18 26 35 – – 79 pts
24th 3781 David Winder and Liv Bell 17 34 30 – – 81 pts
25th 3711 Sam Thompson and Leanne Thompson 32 29 21 – – 82 pts
