Hamble River Sailing Club Wednesday Night Series B - Day 1

The first race of the B Series of the ever popular Hamble River Sailing Club Wednesday night saw the return of RO Jamie Wilkinson. With no mercy to the competitors (or indeed the committee boat crew) Jamie led the fleet out brandishing a Yankee flag for life jackets with a forecast of a north westerly with some 20 knots gusting 25.

As a change of scenery the classes were sent up Southampton Water with straight windward leeward laps for all classes with the XODs and Class 3 playing around Catshead and Bald Head and Classes 2 and 1 round After Bar and Coronation. Although the tide was on the turn and coming in there was little wind over tide given the protected nature of Southampton Waters and with the start and finish at Hamble Point the Committee boat got a very good view of the classes passing both up and down wind.

A number of the XODs sensibly decided that the breeze might be a bit much but 6 hardy boats ventured out and showed the other classes how to retain control in the breeze which, according to many competitors, managed to gust up to 30 knots on a number of occasions. Proving that age does equal experience on some races X21 Satu (Andy Hamlett) took the first race of the second series with X166 Swallow (Simon Russell) and X90 Calypso (John & Tim Harding) in tow. Dog Tired, one of the perennial Sonata fleet, was a newcomer to Class 3. After a slightly shaky first down wind leg with some kite unwrapping immediately under the view of the committee boat and the Sonata not only took the class quite convincingly but raced round with its entire crew barefoot in what were less than tropical conditions. Fritha (Bob Allen) and Cockleshell (Jonty Sherwill) took second and third on handicap in what looks to be a highly contested fleet for the B series.

Class 2 showed a complete shake up of the usual suspects with Anne Louise (Peter Slimming) leaving the fleet for dead on corrected despite goosewinging their jib rather than going for the kite with Xtract (Dudley Stock) in second place. Third place went to Two Frank (Olly Love) who snatched his results by seconds from Needlework (Peter & Ann Smith) despite a spectacular Chinese jybe which soaked the entire crew. Another Impala, Cheeky Monkey (Aiden Barr) unfortunately suffered sail malfunctions and was forced to retire. In Class 1 Wight Hare retired struggling in the windy conditions with their lighter crew as did Wee Bear (Chudziak, Horner & Malas) who were only three up but who finished to take third place. Triarchy (Dr Colin Kennedy) walked the whole race and looked calm and extremely controlled on the kite runs to take both line honours and first place with Midnight Cowboy (Steph Merry) second.

Public apology must be made to Ross Elliston of Mist who claimed last week that his fifth place in the pursuit race was as a result of forced evasive manoeuvring due to a very large seal at a mark rounding. This was greeted by a certain amount of scepticism back in the Clubhouse. However the seal, having participated last week, clearly decided to sit it out this week and hung around the committee boat (perhaps in the belief that we might be a fishing boat of sorts) and it certainly was a very large seal!

Wednesday night racing is free and only available to members but all new comers are invited to come and try an evening for free. Those looking to crew do contact the office; it has been great to see a number of new crew who recently have joined the Club. 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. All new boats are invited to join the fleet back in the Clubhouse for supper afterwards and those members with boats who haven't made it out on the water yet - get your friends together for a fun race and perhaps some more seal spotting.