(Hamble, England)- The famous Hamble Winter Series continued on the Solent and Southampton Water, hosted by the Hamble Sailing Club. The classes include IRC handicap as well as one-design fleets of J/70s in southern United Kingdom. This past weekend marked the third weekend of sailing in beautiful fall weather conditions.
The Hamble One-design Championship was sailed on both the Saturday and Sunday of Week 3. PRO Ian Bullock, set up station in the vicinity of William buoy for the Saturday starts to take advantage of the WSW airstream. The J/70’s sailed a series of windward/leeward courses in the bright sunshine and steadily increasing breeze. The Race Team, with Ian Sumner, guesting as Time Keeper, on his annual return to the Solent, managed to get four races completed just in case the weather for the next day was not so helpful. As the wind built throughout the day, all the fleets began to surf and plane down the waves.
Paul Ward’s EAT SLEEP J REPEAT showed very quickly why he was the current J/70 World Champion with four bullets on Saturday.
Sunday arrived and this time, although sunny, the wind was from the ENE and decidedly chilly. Everyone was now very happy that only two races were needed to finish the series. Mike Foster was PRO and he placed the start near East Knoll, with the windward mark off the Hill Head shore. Once again, the pressure slowly built, so that when Paul Wyeth appeared to take the pictures, the teams were parting the waves and creating impressive water features.
Having missed the first weekend, Ward’s EAT SLEEP J REPEAT was unable to feature on the overall podium. Marshall King’s SOAK RACING, took the J/70 Championship with 14 points, followed by Tim Collins’ EV EXPERTS in second with 24 pts and Simon Cavey’s JUST 4 PLAY in third with 37 pts.
The IRC boats in the main HYS Hamble Winter Series were taken to Goodall Roofing (40), to battle it out for the Key Yachting day prizes (wine and chocolates) for the first race. The second race started around the "Ryde Middles” and went NE to Fastnet Insurance or East Bramble (depending on your size), then back towards the Isle of Wight, before heading NE to the Lee on the Solent shore, returning to South Ryde Middle and appropriately to a finish off Hamble Yacht Services.
In the IRC 1 Division, race 1 saw the J/112E DAVANTI TYRES take second. Then, DAVANTI TYRES took the win in race two, followed by Paul Griffith’s J/111 JAGERBOMB.
In IRC 2 Division, Simon Perry’s J/109 JIRAFFE continued her winning ways with two first places. "We just kept our nose clean,” said a crewmember. Gavin Howe’s J/88 TIGRIS was also literally in the Key Yachting chocolates with a fourth and a second. Sitting in third for the series is John Smart’s J/109 JUKEBOX to round out a current clean sweep of the class podium for J/Crews.
Continuing to extend their lead in the J/88 class scoring is Howe’s TIGRIS, with Dirk van Beek’s SABRIEL JR in second 4 pts back, and Tim Tolcher’s RAGING BULL in third yet another 4 pts in arrears.
Next week is Race Week 4 of the HYS Hamble Winter Series and the culmination of the Hamble Big Boat Championship. Sailing photo credits- Paul Wyeth/ PWPictures.com For more Hamble Winter Series sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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