Monkey Marine International 14 Nationals at Castle Cove SC - Days 1 & 2

Monkey Marine International 14 Nationals day 1 © Isabella Hartland

Monkey Marine International 14 Nationals day 2 © Isabella Hartland

Day 1

The International 14 Nationals started with 2 races in breezy conditions at Castle Cove Sailing Club in Weymouth.

The first challenge of the day was getting off the beach with a strong onshore breeze. A number of unlucky boats found themselves battling the moored yachts. A few boats even dared to launch from the shallow water slipway, which inevitably ended in disaster...

Despite this, the first race got away at 13:00 on the dot as promised, whilst gusts of 25 knots ripped through the fleet. Archie Massey with Harvey Hillary and Glen Truswell with Sam Pascoe got away from the rest of the fleet and had a match race around the course; Archie finally finishing first. The trailing group of Andy Fitzgerald, Richard Bone and Douglas Pattison were never far behind with a reasonable gap to the rest of the fleet.

The second race started in slightly lighter airs, the fleet had a great start. The path into the windward mark was very tight with Archie/Harvey just in the lead from Glen/Sam followed by Julian Pearson and Nick Martin with 4 other boats very close. Archie and Glen managed to pull out on the run while the chasing group continuously danced around each other down the run with Andy Fitz coming in on starboard to the leeward mark, but failing to get his kite down. The race continued with Ben McGrane and James Hughes managing to jump from the chasing group to catch the leaders and get a second by the finish line with Archie getting his second first and Glen taking a third.

An exciting day on the water, with the forecast ramping up for Day 2, time would only tell what the morning would bring..

Day 2

Day 2 dawned and the wind had mercifully swung to a more sympathetic cross shore breeze that allowed some momentary shelter from the building wind.

What turned out to be around 30 knots of wind blew through the fleet as they attempted to reach the start. The bear-aways required multiple attempts, and even the likes of Archie found themselves swimming on the way out to the line.

Luckily, he made up for his swim by nailing the start and leading the fleet away to the windward mark.

Glen and Sam went for an enthusiastic double gybe whilst nipping at Archie's heels, leaving Ben and Archie to battle it out during the next two laps. Eventually, Ben emerged as the victor. During the second reach both Ben and Archie dropped their kites prematurely, allowing Glen and Doug to claw their way back.

Ben one-tacked the next beat, pulling away as the lucky left-hand side proved to be unusually unlucky.

Glen and Sam then took another dip at the windward mark, allowing Doug to take third, whilst Ben sealed the lead, with Archie firmly in second.

The second start was decidedly emptier, however this didn't stop a few boats attempting to get a jump on the start gun. Ben lead around the windward mark, closely followed by Glen with Archie in hot pursuit. Over the next three laps, each of the top three took turns in leading the pack, whilst pulling away from the rest of the fleet. Coming into the last windward mark, Archie was chasing hard, but through it in with an overly flamboyant gybe-drop. Ben was applying the pressure in equal measures, only to take a flying leap through his main sail.

Archie managed to right the boat in time to follow Glen across the line. Richard Bone and Chris Rodway capitalised on Ben's sail redesign to clinch third. Ben flogged the remains of his main to take fourth.

Results after Day 2: