(Warsash, Southampton Water, England)- The second meeting of the Warsash Spring Series took place on Sunday 20th March. It was a busy day where 150+ keelboats shared the water with 80 dinghies from the Hamble Warming Pan event. Again the wind was light - around 6 to 9 knots – but after an initial postponement, all classes eventually completed their races on schedule. Tacticians had the challenge of strong west-going spring tides throughout the racing. Unusually, the breeze was less steady for the White Group of sportsboats racing in the entrance to Southampton Water and this fleet finished when Black Group were already heading for home.
In
Black Fleet IRC 1 Class, Nial Dowling's J/111 ARABELLA had another
tough outing in the light winds and huge tidal conditions. As the
eastern most course, the Black Group committee boat anchored north of
Fastnet Insurance buoy. Courses were designed and redesigned. The breeze
showed 187 degrees at 0915 as the course setters started their work and
then clocked steadily round to 262 degrees at 1000 where it stayed from
then on until 1400. Using a mixture of permanent and laid marks, the
windward legs finished just east of the Bramble Bank. The runs against
the tide were interspersed with a tight spinnaker reach to ring the
changes. IRC1 got off to a clean start and ARABELLA kept close company
with the top big boats all the way but got nipped in the end to get
sixth overall and 3rd in IRC1-B class, she is now lying second overall
in IRC1-B with a 2-3 record.The increasing weather-going tide was always going to present tacticians with a problem timing runs into the line. What became noticeable at the leeward mark, Fastnet Insurance, was that the west going tide was much stronger than many boats anticipated. Those that ran down from the top mark in the main channel on port tack had much greater difficulty in judging the layline when they gybed onto starboard. Those who had come across towards the mainland shore first had a much easier life. In IRC3, many of the top J's figured out the tactical dilemma, with Jamie and Mike Holmes J/97 JIKA-JIKA getting third for second in the series. Andy Howe's J/92 BLACKJACK was eighth and now lies fourth for the series. Bill Blain's J/97 BATFISH IV sailed a great race and managed a 4th place, moving them rapidly up the series standings to 10th overall.
The
sixteen boat strong J/109 class had a cracking start and Matthew
Boyle’s SHIVA chose the committee boat end to take an early lead on the
beat. The fleet rounded Royal London buoy nose to tail and hoisted
spinnakers. By the time Fastnet Insurance had been reached Dom
Monkhouse's ME JULIE had sneaked a short lead with SHIVA in contention.
These two extended their lead but on the last beat SHIVA kept her lead
whilst ME JULIE slipped back into the clutches of J/DREAM, OFF BEAT and
JAHMALI to finish fifth. This was close and exciting racing and the
general consensus of the teams was that “it didn’t get much better”.
The
J/80s pushed the line on the first of their three races. The ‘X’ flag,
signifying an individual recall, was raised and lowered constantly
during the final minute with JUMPING JENGA (Stewart Hawthorn) and Gordon
Craigen’s SWALLOW over the line. JUMPIN JENGA returned to start
properly and went on to make up ground for sixth place. SWALLOW either
missed the recall flag or took a chance but had to score an OCS. Last
week the RAF team on SPITFIRE was all-conquering, but this week they
struggled to find the same form in similar conditions. Their scoreline
of 5,5,3 just keeps them at the top of the table but seriously
challenged by AQUA-J (Patrick Liardet) who took one race with JUST DO IT
(Terry Palmer) and JUMPIN JENGA taking the others. JUST DO IT was one
of three boats counting an OCS in the second race as the weather going
tide eased. For more Warsash Spring Series sailing results. Sailing Photo credits- Eddie May Gallery