Hamble River Bottle Pursuit Race
by Lis Robinson 1 May 2014 14:14 BST
30 April 2014
XOD's start the Hamble River Bottle Pursuit Race © Trevor Pountain
With the Early Bird series finished Hamble River Bottle Pursuit Race took place last night in champagne sailing conditions. PRO Mike Dellar and his team led 21 boats out on a beautiful evening with a SSW breeze of some 10 to 12 knots. The course was a zig-zag reach to Coronation and, appropriately, onto Reach with kites to William and hamblewinterseries.com and a beat back past Coronation to finish at Hamble Point. With low water spring just at the competitors were wary of the shallows.
The XOD fleet kicked off the pursuit fleet with Satu (Andy Hamlett) the only challenger to the XOD Early Bird Series winners Shri (Ben McGrane). Satu, in true gentlemanly mode, allowed Shri to squeeze in above her at the start despite controlling the run in.
Svenja (Mike Stoner) was the only single handed boat in the fleet and so could be forgiven her OCS, not an excuse available to the other OCS boat newcomer Fat Hen (Steve Powell). The rising tide kept most other competitors well behaved on the start.
Not surprisingly, with four Impalas out to play, their start was hotly contested as has been their racing so far this season. Wight Hare (Derek & Chris Hand) was another regular reappearing for the season. Wight Hare sported a 'hot shot' driver imported from the younger ranks along with a mainly family crew, perhaps in challenge to Cheeky Monkey in the Impala fleet where Aidan Barr's son is making increasingly frequent appearances.
Triarchy from Class 1 finished the start sequence and it was interesting to try and see who made the best gains and where on the course in the fleet. Despite the OCS Svenja held her place towards the front of the fleet. Needlework (Peter & Ann Smith) started five minutes into the sequence and steadily pushed through the fleet to take the lead just after the start of the last beat which she held to the finish to win. Svenja fought a luffing match against Dino Volante (Pat North et al) down the last leg to take second place by one second from Dino Volante in third closely followed by Satu in fourth with Shri some distance behind.
The club has received some great feedback on the Early Bird series and the continuing success of the racing has been reflected in the impressive numbers this year. Traditionally the start of Series A next week tempts even more members out on the water so we hope the weather continues to favour Wednesdays and look forward to a good fleet next week when we welcome back PRO Kathy Smalley. Watch this space for details - BIG WEDNESDAY is coming soon!
After last year's introduction, the club is continuing the Three's a Crowd this year. This double handed series consists in three Saturdays of racing and is open to XODs and keelboats. The first day will be on Saturday 24th May so members save the date!
Entry to a Wednesday night racing is free and only available to members but all new boats are invited to come out and try a race for free and to join the fleet back in the Clubhouse for supper afterwards. Those looking to crew do contact the office. Full details on the Hamble River SC website so come and break up the week with a dose of sea air each Wednesday evening until the clocks change.