Last Sunday…yeah sorry it’s taken a while, but it was windy and the body still aches and all that.
In the morning there was a gentle F2-3 and blazing sunshine greeting the competitors. While the clouds started to form, the windy slowly built to a good F3-4 for the start of the PY based race. The wind increased even more throughout to gusting F5 and it was these conditions that saw the ILCA 6 (Laser Radial) of Matt West harry the leading pack of Andrew Frost (Aero 7), Chris Jones (Aero 7), Rich Cumberbatch (Phantom) & Ian Jay (K1). While the leaders fought amongst themselves Matt kept the speed on and despite the wind easing for the last lap was still close enough to take the trophy. Frostie was 2nd from a fast (?) charging Ian who overtook Chris on PY by 2 seconds. Fair to say he was lucky because if the wind had stayed up Chris would have got a deserved 3rd, but it was not to be.
The RNLI pursuit started early for Olly Wilson in his ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7) who made the most of the clear wind he doesn’t normally get when starting in a PY race with everyone else on the line. Last to go was Rich in the Phantom and he was someone else who enjoyed not having other boats around him off the start. Ian in the K1 started just 1 minute ahead of the Aeros and benefited from Frostie getting it all wrong with a gust tipping him in on the start. Other than Frostie, the other Aero’s never really closed in on Ian who slowly pulled in the boats ahead. With about 20 mins to go Ian was on Howard Frears (Streaker) transom to only drop the tiller extension at the gybe at number 1 and do a pirouette, safe to say the keel on the K1 probably stopping him from swimming. It didn’t hold him up for too long overtaking Howard in a massive gust just before number 2. With one lap to go Frostie had already overtaken the remaining boats and was closing in on Ian, leading to the K1 starting to cover tack the faster Aero. A slight gust pulled Ian away from Frostie coming away from number 8 and it was this that made the difference as the boats downwind were very similar in pace. There was 1/4 of a beat upwind left with Ian matching Frostie tack for tack before the finishing signal ended it, just in Ian’s favour. As a pursuit should, the finishers were within a whisker of each other.
A huge thanks to Pat Jones running the races aided by James Harcourt, Sandy Lavelle & Steve Joyce running the safety boats and Hugh Tetlow providing the refreshments.
