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Warsash Marine Southern Area Championship |
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| A very light first day saw the arrival of 16 1720’s for the Warsash Marine Southern Area Championships hosted by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club in Cowes. Two long distance visitors, Ruairidh Scott from Scotland in ‘King Quick’ and Maurice ‘Prof’ O’Connell from Ireland steering Des Faherty’s Aquatack were welcomed by the south coast fleet. Several Solent fleets failed to race in the extremely light conditions but the 1720 fleet managed to get away due to the boat’s impressive light airs performance. Race 1 Very light airs and a spring tide made a difficult day for the PRO but racing got underway with the start area just east of Brambles bank. Aquatack lead at the weather mark and maintained her lead down the run and up the second beat. King Quick worked their way through the pack after poor start with some good downwind speed in the limited bands of pressure. It was important to stay out of tide behind the Brambles bank. On the last run King Quick and Ian Atkin’s ‘Boats.com’ sailed into 1st and 2nd respectively and then breeze shut down with the fleet moving down tide. The wind eventually filled in from behind bringing the fleet close together. King Quick held their lead from Aquatack and Andrew McLelland’s ‘Splash Test Dummies’ finishing in third place. Race 2 The tide had changed to run west allowing gaps at the favoured committee boat end of the line. Aquatack won the start with King Quick hot on their tail. King Quick tacked around the committee boat and lead the majority of the fleet out to the right. At the windward mark a 20-degree left shift saw James Flynn’s ‘Crescendo’ leading from King Quick and ‘Rageur’ owned by new boys to the fleet Mark Links and Christian Thomson. King Quick gybed first and rolled Crescendo but Rageur held to make gains. King Quick held the inside line at the leeward mark to lead from the Rageur and Splash Test. Rageur Showed good pace up the next beat to take the lead which they held on to the finish. King Quick second and Splash Test third. Strong adverse tide down the run meant many boats didn’t quite finish within the time limit. Aquatack made an impressive finishing move when they snatched 4th place on the line. Later a protest regarding a separate incident saw Aquatack move up in to third place and Splash Test DSQ. Race 3 After long postponement racing started in light winds. Midway up the first beat Aquatack were leading from Splash Test with King Quick and Rageur mid fleet. By the top mark with impressive boat speed, Splash Test had taken the lead and KQ were up to 4th behind Aquatack and Oi! (owned and sailed by John Cooper and Bill Vance) in 5th. An early gybe took King Quick past Oi! and to within striking distance of Aquatack who tacked away up the next beat to the shortened finish. King Quick held on to the right. Splash Test played it safe and positioned herself in the middle between the finish and Aquatack. Slightly more pressure took King Quick past Aquatack and closer to Splash Test who held on to take the win. Race 4 With a 1st and two 2nds a top 5 was needed for King Quick to win the Warsash Marine Southern Area Championship. After a couple of general recall starts due to the strong tide down at the pin end and the increased wind strength the race finally got away under a black flag. Stephen Porter’s ‘Polyphagus’ collided with Aquatack on the pin end and were also black flagged. Aquatack extended from a good start to win the race by a fair distance. King Quick found them being bounced out to the left and pushed over the lay line. They rounded the 1st mark in 9th leaving them with a lot to do to secure the championship. After some hard work they climbed to 3rd at the finish which was later improved to 2nd as a result of some boats missing the windward gate on the second beat. The Royal Corinthian Yacht Club hosted a great event and it is important to thank them for getting more races in than the other fleets in the Solent on the Saturday. A great barbecue on Saturday night with the competitors leaving only when the bar had shut. Thanks also to Warsash Marine for the continued sponsorship of this event and to Yachts and Yachting for some generous prizes. Results: 1st place King Quick – Ruairidh & Graeme Scott 2nd place Aquatack – Des Faherty & Prof O’Connel 3rd place Rageur – Mark Links & Christian Thomson For enquiries on new and used 1720 Sports boats contact: Key Yachting (www.keyyachting.com) or telephone: 02380 455669 << Back |
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