Hayling Island Sailing Club Opening Handicap Race

HISC Open Handicap Race © Paul Hammett

The sailing season kicked off at the weekend with the HISC Opening Handicap race. Over 40 boats enjoyed the exceptional spring weather of bright sunshine with a ten knot shifty north westerly.

An excellent spread of classes took part including all the popular HISC classes as well as a number of youth sailors in 4.7s and some of the best Moth sailors around. Half an hour into the race the wind became fitful as the sea breeze started to develop; effectively putting the Moths and trapeze boats out of the picture.

The balcony pundits put safe money on Nick Peters in the leading Solo, David Hitchcock in his K6 and Dave and Fiona Sayce's RS200 which managed to stay with the Merlins to the surprise of many.

The wind continued to come and go which led to PRO Tom Morris shortening the course after 90 minutes with the results confirmed as:

1st Nick Peters, Solo
2nd Dave Hitchcock and Ian Nicholson, K6
3rd Rob Hack, Solo
4th James and Anne Gardner, Graduate
5th Dave and Fiona Sayce, RS200

HISC Flag Officer, Nick Peters, commented, "It was great to get back out racing; a cracking start to the season with some tricky and variable racing suiting the slower boats. Chichester Harbour has certainly taken a battering this winter, and many of us were surprised at just how much the sand/shingle banks have shifted. East Head has grown westwards, the Winner Bank has lowered and the Stocker and Pilsey shallows appear to have receded northwards. This weekend coming will see the first full weekend's racing at HISC, by which time all the cruisers will have been launched. It's all go for the club members from now on, after a full winter of training for many visiting classes and squads."

For full details of the HISC racing programme for 2014 please visit www.hisc.co.uk

The next dinghy open event at HISC will be the Easter Pursuit Race and Youth Pursuit Race taking place on Monday 21st April 2014; full details at www.hisc.co.uk