Turps Trophy - International Waterski, Ski Jump and Waterski Trick Tournament held at Gosfield Lake, Essex.

The weekend of 24th and 25th of September saw the gorgeous Gosfield Lake near Halstead in Essex host the Turps Trophy – a long running annual event named after the family who operate the lake as a waterski coaching, camping and accommodation business.

As we’re Brits, we must talk about the weather – sunny and windy and even some light rain for a little while on Sunday. Wind and rain can make all ski disciplines more difficult, particularly when the skier is sometimes travelling at speeds approaching 90 kph!

The Turps dynasty’s youngest, Sebastian Turp achieved a PB (personal best) in tricking and slalom where he skied around 3 buoys with the boat travelling at 55kph – not bad for an 8-year-old.

His sister Tilly also achieved PB’s in slalom and ski jump, where she flew over the ramp to a distance of 15.1 metres at 13 years old.

Other notable performances at the Turps Trophy also included:

• Holger Brummer (Germany) 1.5 buoys at 55kph on a 12 metre line
• Christian Raben (Denmark) 3 buoys at 55kph on a 13 metre line
• Hilary Winter (whose son Freddie Winter is a World No. 1 Waterski record holder, now based in the US) 2 buoys at 55 kph on a 13 metre line
• Martin Winter (Freddie’s Dad) is the over 55’s division who only recently recovered from injury, got 4 buoys at 55kph on a 15.25 metre line
• Ray Griffiths competed for the first time in 20 years and despite complaining of nerves, he got 5 buoys at 55kph on a 14.25 metre line.

Rodney Rowlands fell before going around buoy one in one of the rounds.

The author of this article, who hails from Premier Waterski School in Norfolk took 4 rounds to get his brain into “comp” gear by only getting 3-4 buoys in 3 rounds before actually skiing reasonably with 1.5 buoys at 49kph. Well they do say “If you can’t ski it, write about it!”

Carol Worship from South Lake Ski School, St Neots is amazing, as at over 65 she got 3 buoys at 49kph – inspiring!

Carl Turp (Over 65 division) PB’d with 2 buoys at 52kph on a 14.25 metre line but his grandson Benjamin Turp got 2 buoys at 58kph on 11.25 metres and got a PB in ski jump, landing 38.3 metres

Yvonne Boutle who is well known for talking herself out of achieving a good score and regularly threatens never to do a competition again, still managed 2 buoys at 52kph.

Ex-international ski racer, Russell Cox is obsessively competitive and is never satisfied with his performances, got 4 buoys at 55kph on 14.25.

So overall another great tournament at the prettiest Ski Lake in the South East. Many thanks to the Turp family, Judges, Officials and Drivers for hosting the event as well as looking after us beautifully.