Last season was good for the straight running section with most of our regattas in the south enjoying dry weather up till the final. Only one event was cancelled due to lack of water. This year saw the Blackheath clubs 90th anniversary of which was one of the most attended regattas of the year. The North has had a good year with good turnouts to all regattas. The hot weather brought a few problems with low water levels and some regattas were moved to other lakes.

The section is looking forward to a good year in 2019 with few problems with water levels at all our regattas.

This year the Victoria Model Steamboat Club will celebrate its 115th anniversary. There is a Boiler Test Day on 17th March 2019 at VMSC.

As usual, there will be a display from the straight running section boat the London Model Engineering Exhibition in January

Our first regatta is on April 14th at Welwyn Garden City, Stanborough Lake starting at 10.30am.

Again wishing you all a good year
Dean Reynolds straight running secretary.

On Sunday September 24th the Southern Area Straight Running Championship finals were held at Welwyn Garden City. It was a lovely warm day with just a light breeze across the top of the course and as normal for this time of the year some leaves on the surface to add a bit of difficulty for the competitors.

The format of the Championships is as follows:
There are a set number of regattas to count towards the Championships. This year we had five plus the final and these were, St.Albans, Victoria, The Grand, Blackheath and Welwyn.
At each of the regattas the score that you achieve on the day is taken forward to the next regatta and so on with a grand total for the finals where you take away your lowest score over the five regattas, the competitor with the highest total score in each of the classes is the Champion for the year.
The total number of competitors during the season in each of the classes was:
Wedge 12, Scale Boats 6, Scale Ships 7, Functional 10, and One Metre 14. The number of competitors was down this year with a total entry of only 6 competitors.

The first event was the One Metre with five competitors but the scoring was low and only 2 boats managed to score : Dean Reynolds with 18 and Don Reynolds with 15.
The next event was for Functional craft again with 5 entries but this time all the competitors scored with the winner Roger Lane scoring 26 and Donna Reynolds scoring 24.
The Scale Ships took to the course and there was only four competing Tony Willett with the winning score of 15 and Dean Reynolds scoring 9.
Scale Boats was the next to go with 4 entries. The winner with a score of 15 was Tony Willett and second was Dean Reynolds with a score of 9.
The last event was for the Wedge Class and there were 5 entries. The winner was Roger Lane with a score of 29 and 2nd was Tony Willett with a score of 28.
These scores were added along with those that had been gained during the season to affirm the Champions in the 5 classes and these are:

One Meter Champion: Dean Reynolds with a total score of 79 2nd Donna Reynolds with 63

Functional Champion: Donna Reynolds with 131 2nd Dean Reynolds with 107

Scale ships Champion: Tony Willett with a total of 114 2nd Dean Reynolds with 107

Scale Boats Champion: Dean Reynolds with at total 121 2nd Tony Willett with 104

Wedge Champion: Roger Lane with 144 2nd Tony Willett with 133.

A very enjoyable championships and final congratulations to the winners.