(Hamble, England)- Week six of the HYS Hamble Winter Series dawned with
blue skies, beautiful sunshine, and a forecast for some breeze, though
nowhere near as much as the two previous weeks. What could possibly go
wrong? Well, as it turned out, the Committee Boat, Jabberwock, refused
to start and an urgent message was sent ashore. With Andy and the River
Taxi alongside, the combined brainpower ascertained that it was not a
loose wire, or a faulty starter battery, but that the house battery bank
was to blame. With that turned off, the little 75amp hour starter
battery kicked the engine into life and all was well.
With
the battery bank now slowly charging, the Committee Boat headed for
East Knoll and the Race Team WhatsApp'd the fleet with their intentions.
The forecast was for the wind to go to the East but it was 060 when
they arrived on station and it never went past 070. With that direction
and the forecast in mind, PRO Kathy Smalley decided on courses
containing triangles, sausages and beats. The number of triangles and
sausages depended on the size of the boats. Class 1 and 2 would in fact
go to Royal Thames twice whereas Class 3 & 4 would not. All classes
finished with a spinnaker reach to the hamblewinterseries.com buoy.There was significant, though neap, tide crossing the start line and this made the decision on where to go interesting. Most teams in Class 1 decided to hog the boat end, which led to a number of performance enhancing expletives being heard. With a large NKY Lines container ship in the Thorn Channel, the PRO was relieved to see that the fleet knew that they had no rights whatsoever, and that they all behaved impeccably.
The
J/112E DAVANTI TYRES, sailed by Chaz Ivill and Paul Heyes, once again
won on handicap in IRC 1 Class. As a result, after tossing out their
first two “practice” races of a 3-6, they are the only team in the
fifteen-boat IRC 1 Class to have posted a podium finishes; in fact,
three 1sts and four 2nds. They are leading the class by just two
points, so they will have to be vigilant in their final weekends.In IRC 2 Class, it continues to be a battle of the J/Teams. The J/109 JAGO (Mike & Susie Yates_ was keen to keep tabs on the J/109 JIRAFFE (Simon Perry) as they are the two leaders of the series. JAGO was OCS, despite what Mike Yates said later in the bar, they spent the race "clawing their way back into second place,” as Susie put it. JAGO went left up the second beat and put herself back in contention.
Meanwhile,
the J/88s have been dueling it out for the balance of the podium in IRC
2 Class, as well as fighting for the lead in the J/88 One-Design class
honors. At this stage, it’s a “dead heat”, a horse race of epic
proportions developing between Gavin Howe’s TIGRIS and David &
Kirsty Apthorp’s J-DREAM. To add to that anxiety, both boats have had
their “send it down the mine shaft” type scores; TIGRIS with a 7-12 and
J-DREAM with a 7-11 as their current discards. At the moment, TIGRIS
leads by one point over J-DREAM in the IRC 2 scoring. Those two are
also leading the J/88 One-design scoring, followed by Dirk van Beek’s
SABRIEL JR in third.In Class 3, no one was surprised to see the Greenhalgh family effort (Dad- David and daughter Libby) on their J/92 J’RONIMO leapfrog into third position on the podium once the two discards took effect after eleven races. Thanks for contribution from Trevor Pountain. Sailing photo credits- Paul Wyeth For more Hamble Winter Series sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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