Saturday saw the start of racing for the two days of the Hamble IRC Autumn Championship. Fifty-eight teams went out over the weekend, including a twenty-five strong Class 1, who were also battling for the Hamble Star Trophy for the best" Big Boat." That world-renowned photographer from the Isle of Wight, Paul Wyeth, declared it was "The best turn out all season."
Conditions looked tricky for all concerned from the forecast’s light winds from the NE on Saturday and three fifths of sod all on the Sunday. The CV Condor went to East Knoll to start Race 1 on Saturday and laid a couple of windward marks and a couple of leeward marks to allow for the predicted shift in the wind.
This turned out to be the best breeze of the weekend and the 25 strong IRC 1 fleet had a great first race and finished in a big bunch with the top four separated by only 1 minute 30 seconds on corrected time. Michael O'Donnell's J/121 DARKWOOD was second.
In IRC 2, the battles between the two J/109's of Simon Perry and Mike & Susie Yates, were quickly re-joined. Mike & Susie's JAGO made the most of the first beat by staying south of the North Channel. They arrived at the windward mark first only to be interrupted by a wine glass, in the spinnaker that is, not the cockpit. This meant they spent some time going down tide allowing Simon Perry's JIRAFFE to slip through and gain control of the race. JIRAFFE finished 1st.
The failing breeze meant that only Class 1 managed to finish the second race on Saturday.
As already stated, the forecast for Sunday did not look positive. PRO Peter Bateson was determined to give it a go, if at all possible, and his Saturday night WhatsApp enthused "We are going to try. It only needs a couple more knots of breeze and we'll get some racing." The Race Team went out on time and at 09.13 the message was "We currently have 4-5 knots of breeze from the North. Suggest boats come out and join us." Peter set up a short 0.8-mile course of loops to keep the fleet close for the expected failing breeze, not to mention the start of the spring tide ripping in the wrong direction. As it turned out every class was shortened by radio Amendment 3, which allowed at least some of them to have a race.
IRC 1 spoiled the plan to get everyone away quickly, by forcing a general recall. "A crucial loss of 10 minutes!" was the only printable comment from those classes waiting patiently behind them. The upshot of this was that in IRC 3, only four boats managed to finish. David Greenhalgh's J/92 J'RONIMO finished a comfortable first. J'RONIMO managed third overall due to 13 retirements on the last race.
In IRC 2, Race 3 started with the J/109s JIRAFFE, JAGO and one other boat OCS. Although this call by the Race Team was hotly disputed on JAGO, they duly returned with JIRAFFE and set about recovering the situation. They repeated their tactics from the first race, this time without any spinnaker trouble and came home first. Mark Stevens J/105 JACANA was second and JIRAFFE was third.
With the benefit of going first, eventually, IRC 1 with their greater speed managed to get 16 boats to the amended finish. The overall positions for the IRC 1 Autumn Championship saw Cornel Riklin's J/111 JITTERBUG take third place!
Peter Bateson and the Race Team are to be congratulated in getting three races run in such trying conditions. Sailing photo credits- Paul Wyeth For more Hamble Winter Series sailing information