By Simon Beddows
As the old adage goes, if you want something doing well ask a busy person. Richard not only sails his Blaze but also races a Fireball at National level where he is their Class Nationals coordinator. At his home club, Draycote Water, he has held various roles including Commodore. He is also a representative on the Great Lakes handicap team.
In the 2018-19 Winter Sail Juice Series he won the Allen Performance Challenge for being the best improver over 6 of the 7 races. In the previous year he sailed all 7 races representing the Blaze.
Richard arrived on to the Blaze Class Association committee at The Bala Inlands in 2015, taking over as events coordinator from the retiring Simon Beddows. At the time, the long-serving Paul Taylor was the Class Secretary and they continued to work as a team, running the class and organising the events. When Paul stood down in 2018, Hugh Kingdon joined as treasurer, Ben Harden took over events and Richard became Chairman. The Class continued to grow into, and beyond, the Covid years, and the welcome return to sailing was met with a record 2022 Nationals entry with Richard firmly in the Chair. After Ben left to concentrate on other projects, Richard’s final job before retiring was to help organise the 2023 Blaze Nationals.
At the AGM held during the event, an impassioned speech from the class builder, Richard Hartley, featured his fond perspective on their close working partnership and was backed-up by a noisy send-off by the Class membership as Richard undertook his final task of hosting the 2023 Nationals prize-giving.
As we know, the numbers taking part in the 2023 Nationals toppled the previous record once again and the event will be laid to history as an Epic for all the right reasons. Unquestionably, an impressive and fitting legacy for the outgoing Chairman.
Always smiling and willing to help, his stepping-down will be a great loss to the Class Association and we thank him for all he has done during his time in office.
But we haven’t seen the last of him – true-to-form, he has agreed to be co-oped back onto the new committee’s advisory team, for which we are all extremely thankful. He has no plans (so we’re told) to hang up his hikers just yet and I am sure he will continue to be a well-liked and admired active member of the Blaze family for years to come.
Richard was always unafraid of hardwork. The first to volunteer to do the minutes and get something done including the first rules revamp in years and years. That the fleet has grown and continues to grow is a great legacy to leave behind. Well done Richard
Hear, hear!. Thanks Simon for a well written and well deserved tribute. Many thanks Richard.
Here, here - well done once again