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A Fitgerald family victory at Itchenor.

Part of the fun in our neck of the sailmaking woods is our sails' success at every level. 9 years old Edward Fitzgerald recently won his first club race ever. In a tricky, gusting Northerly wind he steered his Mirror to win the Itchenor S C Afternoon Points race from a strong fleet including the strongly fancied Sibthorpe family who finished as runners-up. First and second places were both secured using Batt Sails.

......................and at the other end of the scale............."Kokomo" (Dragonfly 800) skipper James Stewart, crew Keith Taylor, won the double handed Nab Tower race. Third home on the water, Kokomo was an easy handicap winner in a good fleet which included three-times Olympic medalist Rodney Pattison. We are pleased to report Batt sails on three of the first six boats, including, of course, the seemingly unstoppable "Kokomo".

CHERUB NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. WEYMOUTH.

'Green Slug' sailed by ROBIN RUSSELL and WILL took the 2001 Cherub Nationals with a race to spare, leaving class legend DAVE ROE and CLARE to take the last race and runner-up spot for a second year in 'The Pasta Frenzy.' TIM DEAN and UNA brought 'Fizzy Shark' home in fourth to extend Batt Sails' hold on the event.

Sixteen of these highly developed mini skiffs slugged it out over four exciting days of close racing in varied conditions which often tested the fleet to the full.

CHERUB EQUIPMENT NOTE
The jury is still out on the best spinnaker configuration, although mast head or near-masthead sails are gaining popularity. The current wisdom is to have the hoist as high as the mast will stand.
The top two at this year's National Championships use Batt sails exclusively. This makes it three years out of the last four that BATT sails have taken the championships. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

ONE-DESIGN SAIL DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Spinnakers:

THIS an amazingly busy time of year for the sailmaking fraternity, well,my bit of it at least.

With the new season upon us we have been busy working on the feedback we get from the sailors and our own testing, revisiting the designs that warrant it and evaluating recent new work. All this alongside an unusually busy period of normal sailmaking production.

We are particularly excited by a new International 14 spinnaker which has new powers, and amazing close-windedness. Other notable asymmetric work has been with the Micro-Multihulls, where we have seen a big increase in interest.

The Merlin Rocket spinnaker designed last Spring has proved to be a real peach so there are no planned changed there. In fact the detail work on the whole Merlin rig is all in place. The new materials,shapes and construction proved themselves beyond our realistic hopes last year and we are looking forward with relish to the 2001 Merlin season. Check out our Merlin pages for details.

The latest Wayfarer, Lark, Fireballand Scporpion spinnaker designs have also benefitted from this work. Our digital systems mean that advances quickly percolate into all areas of our design work.

KOKOMO DOES IT AGAIN. .......................................FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN SUCCESSION JAMES STUART AND LUCY KENNEDY TOOK THEIR DRAGONFLY 800 "KOKOMO' TO VICTORY IN THE MOCRA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. THIS EVENT, ABLY HOSTED BY THE RSYC, ATTRACTED A FLEET OF 18 OF THESE ADVANCED CRAFT. NEEDLESS TO SAY, "KOKOMO" IS POWERED BY A FULL COMPLEMENT OF BATT SAILS. AFTER THE EVENT JAMES STUART COMMENTED "THE COMPETITION IS GETTING HOTTER ALL THE TIME AND IT'S GREAT RACING, BUT WE HAVE EXCELLENT SPEED
IN ALL CONDITIONS, WITH A DISTINCT EDGE UPWIND."

AND AGAIN ............................................THIS TIME WINNING THE TWO-HANDED ROUND-THE-ISLAND RACE. SKIPPER JAMES STEWART WAS JOINED BY KEITH TAYLOR TO STAMP THIS PHENOMINALLY SUCCESSFUL DRAGONFLY 800'S MARK ON A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE FLEET. SIMON FORBES AND PAUL WELLS SAILED 'SCOOBY 111' INTO FOURTH PLACE

KOKOMO
WINNING THE MOCRA NATIONALS

SQUIB NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. LOWESTOFT.
Many congratulations to CHRIS and MARK HOGAN, the new National Squib UK Champions. A solid sixth place in the final race gave "Ricochet" the championships by a good margin. She finished with a seven point advantage over LLOYD CRISP and GREG BELL in "Fagin" having headed the leaderboard all week after winning the practice race. "Fagin" scored a fifth in the last heat, not enough to dent "Richochet"s lead. Defending champion Nigel Harris and 1999 champion Dave Best were third and fourth respectively.

EQUIPMENT NOTE
The top two Squibs at this year's National Championships use Batt sails exclusively. This makes it three years out of the last four that BATT sails have taken the championship and the runner-up position.CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

BATT SAILS ON THE SILVER TILLER TRAIL.

CONGRATUALTIONS TO JUDITH MASSEY ON HER FIRST SILVER TILLER WIN LAST WEEKEND AT DATCHET.
SO FAR THIS SEASON JOHN BELL & GRAHAM WILLIAMSON HAVE WON THE HAMPTON SAILING CLUB 'SILVER TILLER' OPEN IN FICKLE RIVER CONDITIONS HAVING PREVIOUSLY TAKEN A WINDY CHICHESTER Y C OPEN MEETING AND WINNING THE SILVER TILLER RACING AT THORPE BAY Y C . PATRICK and ANNA BLAKE WON THE WELL-ATTENDED COOKHAM REACH S C SILVER TILLER MEETING AND A RACE AT SALCOMBE.THEY WERE SECOND AT RUTLAND. SIMON BLAKE IS GOING WELL DOWNWIND WITH THE NEW 'BATT' SPINNAKER HE NICKED FROM HIS DAD.

ITS ANOTHER GREAT SEASON FOR BATT SAILS IN THIS ENDURING, EXCITING CLASS

21....AND GOING STRONG ! !
SInce 1980 Batt Sails have been proud to be at the leading edge of racing sail technology.

At last count we had 2849 individual sail designs on file in our trusty Macintosh-based computer sail design system, covering an amazing range of sailing craft. All our own work! Some of these files files have been 'archived' from pre-1990 so we have a complete record of our successful work and a massive library of data for reference at any time, for any task. This is constantly being updated.

BATT SAILS was one of the very first sail lofts to introduce digital design and production systems Our customers continue to reap the benefits of our foresight and this progressive attitude continues to this day, taking full advantage of the many exciting developments in techniques and sail material. Developing even better ways of delivering dependable performance on the race course. .

Have you seen the REALLY GOOD SITE called "Chimet" ?? Only really useful if you frequent Chichester Harbour , I suppose. If you know of any other similar coastal meteorology reporting sites I would love to know about them.