Duncan Watts has won the Lightning class of the 2020 Autumn Series in Lightning 368 sail number 431. The series was limited to two Sundays with the Lightnings only competing in the final Sunday of the series after strong winds put off the Lightning sailors on the first Sunday of the series.
Sailing on Sunday 25th October saw good winds and a strong river current and Duncan Watts (LN 431) and Clive Evison (LN 304) started the first race. These were challenging conditions for Duncan’s first ever sail on the Thames as he had only recently joined the club and Clive’s knowledge of the river saw him open up a good lead in the first race and take the win. After lunch Clive moved into his Phantom and Duncan was joined by Martin Evans (LN 150) and new members Daniel Hanrahan (LN 281) and James Hanrahan (LN 304). The race was closely fought with both Martin and Duncan sailing very well and competing with the OK sailors for outright positions. Martin had opened a small gap on Duncan by the finish with James and Daniel battling for third in the challenging conditions, James finishing ahead of Daniel.
For the final race, the wind had picked up and the racing between Duncan and Martin was closer still and they battled all the way to the flag with Duncan taking his first class win at Cookham. Daniel beat James to third after James had a couple of capsizes in some strong gusts towards the end of the race which caught out others in the OK fleet (see race report).
The Cookham Knocker was won by Duncan with Martin second, Daniel and James tied in third and Clive in fifth.