JIKA-JIKA and J-DREAM Contending for Overall Title!
(Hamble, England)- A week to go in the series with one or two interesting battles to watch, and as mentioned below even those who have already won their classes will be gunning it to improve their chances of winning the overall trophies, the Garmin Yacht of the Year and Garmin Sportsboat of the Year. These are not just lowest points trophies, but also factored against size of class and a competitiveness factor, and worked out by Race Director Jamie Wilkinson. At this stage, the J/97 JIKA-JIKA and the J/109 J-DREAM are vying for overall honors.
With the air temperature barely climbing above zero degrees on this penultimate day of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series, thankfully the north-easterly breeze never got much above 10 knots. Even so it was shifting widely, and enough to delay the Black Fleet starts by ten minutes while the committee re-laid the start line near the Sunsail racing mark on the Ryde Middle.
Having picked Fastnet Insurance buoy as a first mark the IRC and one-designs were set windward leeward courses, but with a breeze that was gradually dropping, and mindful of the many pairs of cold hands, the race committee made a popular decision in shortening the races after 100 minutes of sailing.
The
J/109s had a very tactical race Sunday. The Black Fleet committee
boat was on station on Ryde Bank and gave the preceding classes a long
race of windward/leewards with an initial beat almost all the way to the
north shore, followed by a good down wind back to Ryde Bank. When the
J/109 Class course was announced with similar legs to the earlier
starts, it was obvious that the day was going to be dominated by tidal
tactics.
The fleet headed upwind with an even split on port and starboard only to converge again at the windward mark. This mark rounding saw OUTRAJEOUS (Richard & Valerie Griffith) judge the tide perfectly to lead from ARIA (Luca Rubinelli), JAGERBOMB (Paul Griffiths), RED ARROW (Marcus Wilson), DESIGNSTAR 2 (Roger Phillips) and last week’s race winner, OFFBEAT (David McLeman). Season leader J-DREAM (David and Kirsty Apthorp) was buried back in the pack.
A spinnaker run of nearly two miles saw many position changes as OUTRAJEOUS extended her lead from ARIA and J-DREAM pulled through to third. RED ARROW with her new crew were delighted to be in the pack and determined to protect their position.
Halfway up the next beat ARIA was overhauled by J-DREAM and within metres of the mark OUTRAJEOUS ducked J-DREAM, who was on starboard. Another long run back across the Solent saw OUTRAJEOUS take better advantage of the tide to round the leeward mark first.
The leaders had an uneventful leeward mark rounding, buy the majority of the fleet arrived at the mark at the same time. A starboard rounding had thrown some and with strong tide, there were a few interesting calls for mark room.
The final beat saw J-DREAM once again lead at the windward mark and as they did not repeat the mistake of the previous downwind leg, OUTRAJEOUS was unable to pass. A beat back to the finish saw J-DREAM extend the lead from OUTRAJEOUS to take the win by 30 seconds, their seventh victory of the series.
ARIA retained 3rd place, whilst some of the fleet rounded the leeward mark and set off for the wrong finish line. JAGERBOMB and DESIGNSTAR were losers in this maneuver, whilst RED ARROW benefitted to finish 4th —only 9 seconds off 3rd and 5 seconds in front of OFFBEAT in 5th. Overall, the results still are: 1st- J-DREAM (David & Kirsty Apthorp), 2nd- OFFBEAT (David McLeman) and 3rd- ARIA (Luca Rubinelli). What's interesting to note is that in the 11th race, all top five took all top five places! Now that's tough racing!
In the White Fleet, racing in the relative shelter of the mainland shore, an amended windward leeward course was in use to reduce time between the three races. With the finishing committee boat near the start line it worked well, with the J/80s getting three start sequences cycled in two hours. Despite a soft breeze and some huge wind shifts, plus one black flag start in the J/80s in race 2, the fleet was heading for the crane by 12:45 pm after a 35-minute final race. Overall, the results still are 1st OI!- John Cooper, 2nd AQUA J- Patrick Liardet, and 3rd is SWALLOW- Gordon Craigen.
Over in IRC Class 2, there have been four J/105s racing and they are 7-8-9-10 in class dueling with one another for one-design "Top Dog". In the fray are JACKPOT sailed by Vernon Bradley in 7th, JOS OF HAMBLE skippered by Professor Roger Williams in 8th, JOURNEYMAKER 5 sailed by Chris Jones in 9th and JOLENE with Ivan and Peter Trotman leading the charge lying 10th.
IRC
Class 3 has simply been dominated by the J/97 JIKA-JIKA (seen here)
sailed by Mike and Jamie Holmes, they have seven 1sts, a 3rd and two
4ths! Tough "hombres" these guys might be called in Texas/ Spanish
slang. Call it a "schooling" or simply a good old-fashioned "spanking",
but Mike and Jamie simply set a new standard of performance with their
well-sailed J/97 in this year's Winter Series. Proof positive it's a
tough boat to beat, often sailing as fast as the J/109s in lighter
conditions downwind! Sailing a nice series and not far off the pace
lying 4th is the J/110 SHADES OF BLUE sailed by Ed Holton-- just one
point out of 3rd!
The series concludes next Sunday, December 5th, and day sponsor will be Elvstrom Sails. One race for the Black Fleet and three races for the White Fleet are scheduled, and as well as finalizing the points series for the ten classes these results will help determine the Garmin Yacht of the Year and Garmin Sportsboat of the Year that will be awarded at the overall prize giving on Saturday December 11th. Report contributions from Jontey Sherwill. Full sailing details of the 2010 Garmin Hamble Winter Series. Sailing photos courtesy- Paul Wyeth/ PWPictures.com.
(Hamble, England)- A week to go in the series with one or two interesting battles to watch, and as mentioned below even those who have already won their classes will be gunning it to improve their chances of winning the overall trophies, the Garmin Yacht of the Year and Garmin Sportsboat of the Year. These are not just lowest points trophies, but also factored against size of class and a competitiveness factor, and worked out by Race Director Jamie Wilkinson. At this stage, the J/97 JIKA-JIKA and the J/109 J-DREAM are vying for overall honors.
With the air temperature barely climbing above zero degrees on this penultimate day of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series, thankfully the north-easterly breeze never got much above 10 knots. Even so it was shifting widely, and enough to delay the Black Fleet starts by ten minutes while the committee re-laid the start line near the Sunsail racing mark on the Ryde Middle.
Having picked Fastnet Insurance buoy as a first mark the IRC and one-designs were set windward leeward courses, but with a breeze that was gradually dropping, and mindful of the many pairs of cold hands, the race committee made a popular decision in shortening the races after 100 minutes of sailing.
The
J/109s had a very tactical race Sunday. The Black Fleet committee
boat was on station on Ryde Bank and gave the preceding classes a long
race of windward/leewards with an initial beat almost all the way to the
north shore, followed by a good down wind back to Ryde Bank. When the
J/109 Class course was announced with similar legs to the earlier
starts, it was obvious that the day was going to be dominated by tidal
tactics.The fleet headed upwind with an even split on port and starboard only to converge again at the windward mark. This mark rounding saw OUTRAJEOUS (Richard & Valerie Griffith) judge the tide perfectly to lead from ARIA (Luca Rubinelli), JAGERBOMB (Paul Griffiths), RED ARROW (Marcus Wilson), DESIGNSTAR 2 (Roger Phillips) and last week’s race winner, OFFBEAT (David McLeman). Season leader J-DREAM (David and Kirsty Apthorp) was buried back in the pack.
A spinnaker run of nearly two miles saw many position changes as OUTRAJEOUS extended her lead from ARIA and J-DREAM pulled through to third. RED ARROW with her new crew were delighted to be in the pack and determined to protect their position.
Halfway up the next beat ARIA was overhauled by J-DREAM and within metres of the mark OUTRAJEOUS ducked J-DREAM, who was on starboard. Another long run back across the Solent saw OUTRAJEOUS take better advantage of the tide to round the leeward mark first.
The leaders had an uneventful leeward mark rounding, buy the majority of the fleet arrived at the mark at the same time. A starboard rounding had thrown some and with strong tide, there were a few interesting calls for mark room.
The final beat saw J-DREAM once again lead at the windward mark and as they did not repeat the mistake of the previous downwind leg, OUTRAJEOUS was unable to pass. A beat back to the finish saw J-DREAM extend the lead from OUTRAJEOUS to take the win by 30 seconds, their seventh victory of the series.
ARIA retained 3rd place, whilst some of the fleet rounded the leeward mark and set off for the wrong finish line. JAGERBOMB and DESIGNSTAR were losers in this maneuver, whilst RED ARROW benefitted to finish 4th —only 9 seconds off 3rd and 5 seconds in front of OFFBEAT in 5th. Overall, the results still are: 1st- J-DREAM (David & Kirsty Apthorp), 2nd- OFFBEAT (David McLeman) and 3rd- ARIA (Luca Rubinelli). What's interesting to note is that in the 11th race, all top five took all top five places! Now that's tough racing!
In the White Fleet, racing in the relative shelter of the mainland shore, an amended windward leeward course was in use to reduce time between the three races. With the finishing committee boat near the start line it worked well, with the J/80s getting three start sequences cycled in two hours. Despite a soft breeze and some huge wind shifts, plus one black flag start in the J/80s in race 2, the fleet was heading for the crane by 12:45 pm after a 35-minute final race. Overall, the results still are 1st OI!- John Cooper, 2nd AQUA J- Patrick Liardet, and 3rd is SWALLOW- Gordon Craigen.
Over in IRC Class 2, there have been four J/105s racing and they are 7-8-9-10 in class dueling with one another for one-design "Top Dog". In the fray are JACKPOT sailed by Vernon Bradley in 7th, JOS OF HAMBLE skippered by Professor Roger Williams in 8th, JOURNEYMAKER 5 sailed by Chris Jones in 9th and JOLENE with Ivan and Peter Trotman leading the charge lying 10th.
IRC
Class 3 has simply been dominated by the J/97 JIKA-JIKA (seen here)
sailed by Mike and Jamie Holmes, they have seven 1sts, a 3rd and two
4ths! Tough "hombres" these guys might be called in Texas/ Spanish
slang. Call it a "schooling" or simply a good old-fashioned "spanking",
but Mike and Jamie simply set a new standard of performance with their
well-sailed J/97 in this year's Winter Series. Proof positive it's a
tough boat to beat, often sailing as fast as the J/109s in lighter
conditions downwind! Sailing a nice series and not far off the pace
lying 4th is the J/110 SHADES OF BLUE sailed by Ed Holton-- just one
point out of 3rd!The series concludes next Sunday, December 5th, and day sponsor will be Elvstrom Sails. One race for the Black Fleet and three races for the White Fleet are scheduled, and as well as finalizing the points series for the ten classes these results will help determine the Garmin Yacht of the Year and Garmin Sportsboat of the Year that will be awarded at the overall prize giving on Saturday December 11th. Report contributions from Jontey Sherwill. Full sailing details of the 2010 Garmin Hamble Winter Series. Sailing photos courtesy- Paul Wyeth/ PWPictures.com.
