We were all expecting a strongish northerly breeze with a start – and most of the course – down the Halstock leg. In the event we had a fitful westerly with lots of holes and a few gusts. The original course included a short dog leg from 6 back up to 5 before going down towards 3, partly to avoid the shallows off this point. In the event this was changed to leave out 5 and apologies to those who missed this change of course. Sixteen boats entered and after just under an hour for the leading boats, the results were
1 Howard Frear Streaker 1777 Elapsed time 49.23 Corrected time 2622
2 Adrian Neal S’nova 1012 47.17 2651
3 Chris Bottomley D-Zero 153 47.02 2699
4 Pete Barnstable Blaze 18 46.31 2704
5 Kelsey Green Laser (R) 136020 51.42 2721
6 Roger Battersby Phantom 1413 46.10 2756
7 Max Robertson RS Tera Pro 440 63.57 2821
8 John Banks Solo 431 53.42 2826
9 Julian Doggrell S’nova 478 50.32 2834
10 Mike Riley S’nova 567 51.15 2874
11 Nigel Leveridge S’nova 432 51.17 2876
12 John Rickard Comet 704 60.56 3047
13 Hollie Coleman Laser 4.7 192528 64.34 3228
14 Dave Hill and Richard Weller Kestrel 156359.00 3375
15 Richard Cumberbatch Phantom 1446 DNF
16 Chris Brann RS 100 DNF
The afternoon race was for the RNLI Trophy and I’m indebted to all those (Richard Frost, Rob Jamieson, Richard Heaton and Howard Frear) who offered advice on running a pursuit race. I’ve done it before but I think I had got a bit rusty. I used a combination of the RYA spreadsheet and Howards interval timings. The spreadsheet was very easy to use and gives intervals rounded up or down to the nearest minute or even as seconds ! One issue is that you don’t know until the day which classes are going to enter. The main feature of course is keeping track of the leading boat and keeping a check on who has or hasn’t been overtaken so a long course is preferable.
We were joined by Merv and Rob Jamieson so Max set off gradually followed (chased) by 16 other boats, 11 of which eventually managed to overtake him. The course was 9 : 7 : 3 to accommodate the anticipated veer from west to north which never really happened, so the reach down to 7 was fairly lifeless and Max and the other early starters didn’t really get away. Howard, who started 12.5 minutes after Max crept up through the fleet followed by Rob and Merv. Before long Adrian was making progress towards the front followed by the Phantoms of Richard and Roger. The idea at the end of the allotted time (75 mins for Max) is that everyone stays where they are in position so that their finishing place can be recorded. They were also all asked to note who was in front and behind when the whistle went. Incidentally the hooter in the race hut was set off by Claire in case people didn’t hear the whistle ! Oh and I nearly forgot to mention the shower of hail during the race.
Anyway the result of all this was :-
1. Howard Frear
2 Richard Cumberbatch
3 Rob Jamieson
4 Adrian Neal
5 Merv Clark
6 Chris Bottomley
7 Pete Barnstable
8 Roger Battersby
9 Mike Riley
10 Juilan Doggrell
11 Phil Bailey
12 Max Robertson
13 Nigel Leveridge and Wendy Jackson
14 Kelsey Green
15 Hollie Coleman
16 Brian Etherington
17 Nick Hendry
Chris Brann DNF
Prizes and RNLI Vouchers were awarded to the first 3 with the handsome RNLI trophy going to Howard Frear.
My thanks to Claire and Bob Tett for their assistance in the race hut and to Steve Joyce and Marcus Patten for OOD’ing
David (Race Officer)