(Warsash, England)- Sunday 22 March was a day that had the race team on
their toes and competitors sailing backwards for the second weekend of
the Brooks MacDonald Warsash Spring Series. The wind shifted from the
forecast ENE, died and came back, and the big spring tides raced through
the Solent - all making for some frustrating racing!White Group’s first and only race started with competitors being pushed across the line by 2 knots of tide and ended with them being pushed away from the line as they tried to finish the race!
An attempt to get the J/70’s second race started ended with competitors not even being able to reach the start line – at which point the White Group race team declared the bar was open and racing was unfortunately finished!
JUST4PLAY
(Simon Cavey) narrowly won in the J/70 fleet, beating Boats.com (Ian
Atkins) to second place with COSMIC (Patrick Liardet) in third. As a
result, the series continues to see Cavey’s crew atop the leaderboard
sitting on 3 pts net from a 1-1-4-1 record. Racing up the ladder after a
toss-race, but tied on points for second, was Nigel Evans’ LITTLE
LOUISE with a 4-2-1-7 for 7 pts. Likewise, classmate David Mitchell’s
JUMANJI has a 2-3-2-5 for 7 pts. In the J/80’s the first three boats were a good minute ahead of the rest of the fleet with BOYSTEROUS (Ali Hall) taking first place, BETTY (Jon Powell) in second and SWALLOW (Romain Patemot) in third. For the series, that means Powell’s unbroken string of firsts now includes a dastardly 2nd place! Nevertheless, with a toss race and a record of 1-1-1-2 that’s a class-leading 3 pts. Sitting on second and showing improvement every race is Ali’s BOYSTEROUS crew with a 3-3-2-1 tally for 6 pts. Third is Mike Lewis’ JESTER with a 2-2-3-DNS for 7 pts net.
For
the Black Group tidal tactics were definitely the name of the game.
Racing a series of windward-leeward legs between Wight Vodka and the
Hill Head/Lee-on-Solent shore helped keep the boats mainly on the Hill
Head plateau and East Knoll bank areas and so out of the strongest
current of the big spring tides. However, by the second half of the race
the breeze had died away to little or nothing for a very frustrating
1.5 hours or more. By the time it did fill in again it had shifted to
the SE making the remaining legs of the race rather processional.Spring Series Chairman Peter Bateson said, “It was great that nearly three-quarters of the boats kept going and persevered to the finish, which we had been shortened 2.5 miles early at Hill Head buoy”.
Leading the IRC 1 Class home was the J/111 ICARUS (Chris Body & Andrew Christie), now holding the series lead with a 4-1 for 5 pts over fellow J/111 JITTERBUG skippered by Cornell Riklin with a 2-4 for 6 pts.
In
IRC2 it was clear the J/88 JI FI sailed by Stew Hawthorn and Paul Heys
enjoyed the challenging light air going, taking a second in this hotly
contested class to move into fourth overall for the series.The top J/Crew in IRC 3 class continues to be the J/97 BLACKJACK II sailed by Andy Howe, currently lying in 5th for the series with 11 pts. Sitting in seventh place is David Greenhalgh’s J/92s J’RONIMO with 12 pts. Remarkably, only five points differentiates 2nd to 8th overall! Needless to say, there will be some tight racing in the weekends ahead for this class.
Finally, in the J/109 class on the Black Group circle, Paul Griffiths’ JAGERBOMB won another race to lead their class for the day and the series. Taking second on the day was David McGough’s JUST SO followed by Frank Gmitrowicz’s RED ARROW. For the time being, Owain Franks & Jean Lockett’s JYNNAN TONNYX is tied for series second overall with Joe Henry’s JACK TAR with 7 pts each.
After a frustrating day on the water competitors headed back to the Warsash Sailing Club where Tiffany Beard from Brooks Macdonald presented the champagne prizes of the day for each of the class winners. For more Brooks MacDonald Warsash Spring Series sailing information
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