The weather forecasts from Saturday evening suggested that wind would hold until Sunday afternoon and everyone was greeted with SW 20 knot winds as they made their way down to the boats. As the 28 boats took to the water the breeze swung to the North, but by the start it was below 10 knots and back round to the west. The bias on the line made it difficult to start on starboard and the course legs could be sailed without tacking. This made for a different flavour to the racing as competitors played with weight distribution and fine trim to try and gain advantages on the legs.
The multihulls were first away and although Ben Goodland again took line honours, Ian Loffhagen on ‘Chimera’ was very close and took the class win by more than 4 minutes. The winds were too light for David on ‘Zoum’ who finished third.
‘Njos’ made a great start but by the first mark Ed Broadway had taken ‘Hooligan VI’ into the lead. ‘Hooligan VI’ took line honours again but Tim Octon was close enough to take the class win by 2 minutes. The J122’s flew their colours this week and ‘Sky Hunter’ came through to take third.
‘Jammin’ with Matt Coleman at the helm had a flying start on port at the ODM and stretched out a commanding lead over the Mike Garvey on ‘J Arrow’ by the first mark. The large shoulders on J arrow’s kite allowed her to close down on Jammin on the downwind leg with ‘Wacky Racer III’ not far behind. The cat and mouse game between the leading J92’s carried on right up to the finish with Jammin taking line honours 25 seconds ahead on J arrow, but Richard House on ‘Wacky Racer III’ kept close enough to take the class win by 26 seconds beating both the J’s.
Andrew Percival is starting to get to grips with his new Enigma 34 taking an early lead in class 3 and carrying it through to take line honours by over 7 minutes, but Chris & Sue Broadbent were determined to keep their record of straight first places untarnished and tweaked ‘Maybee 4’ over the line to take the class win by just over a minute from ‘Big Boys Toys’ with ‘Tigerfeet’ coming home third.
Class 4 was down to 3 boats on the start line this week and although Brian Verstage on ‘Escapade’ took an early lead and line honours by almost 8 minutes he had to be happy with second place as ‘Topaz’ the Contessa 26 of Jim Barham came through to take the class win again.
For further information on RSYC racing contact Cathy Crawley, Sailing Secretary, RSYC, Tel: 023 80 223352 or email racing@rsyc.org.uk