ALTON Water Wipeouts youth windsurfing team didn't sit back on their laurels after last year's decisive win in the RYA Team 15 championship. After a winter of hard training at their base at Alton Water, Stutton, near Ipswich, the team won the opening round in the four-regatta contest for 2008, held at Stanborough Lakes, Welwyn Garden City over the weekend.

ALTON Water Wipeouts youth windsurfing team didn't sit back on their laurels after last year's decisive win in the RYA Team 15 championship.

After a winter of hard training at their base at Alton Water, Stutton, near Ipswich, the team won the opening round in the four-regatta contest for 2008, held at Stanborough Lakes, Welwyn Garden City over the weekend.

Held on the picturesque lake in Stanborough Park the event attracted one of the largest audiences for the sport with walkers and families stopping to watch the fun.

Conditions were best described as benign, with winds of F1 and F2 on the Beaufort scale holding steady directly on to the launching beach.

The courses were set to give cross-wind starts with a variation of beats, upwind legs and downwind blasts. This opening event attracted 16 windsurfers from three teams, Alton Water Wipeouts, Stanborough Stormers and Norwich Force 8th.

The Ipswich-based eight-strong team showed their supremacy by taking first place in four of the five classes, the 4.5m, the 5.5m, the 6.8m and the Big Techno 6.8m.

In the 4.5 metre class Alton Water Wipeouts swept up all three top places with Matthew Barton (12) first, Jack Trollope (13) second and Zoe Deal (15) third.

The 5.5 metre class saw Alton's Dean Taylor (13) win all four races, with team mate Chris Hartley (12) second.

The larger rigged 6.8 metre class was combined with the Big Techno 6.8 metre hi-tech class, which saw Harriet White of Alton in joint second place and team mate Joanna Hartley (14) third.