Harken 29er Grand Prix Round 2 at Royal Torbay Yacht Club

Startline action during the Harken 29er Grand Prix at Torbay © Jean Border / www.borderphotos2010.com

Crispin Beaumont and Tom Darling win the Harken 29er Grand Prix at Torbay © Jean Border / www.borderphotos2010.com

Big waves during the Harken 29er Grand Prix at Torbay © Ditta Neumann

Royal Torbay Yacht Club hosted the 2nd event in the 2015/16 Harken Grand Prix series over the weekend of 26th/27th September.

Saturday dawned and the 47 teams were greeted with glorious sunny conditions but with a very light, unstable wind. It was good to see so many new faces in the fleet. The plan for the weekend was to complete 5 races on the Saturday and 4 on the Sunday.

The first race started in a shifty 7 knot breeze but as the day progressed, the wind direction stabilised and strengthened to circa 10 knots, with a small swell starting to form adding to the already challenging conditions.

Saturday was won by Crispin Beaumount and Tom Darling (Bartley/HISC), who posted two race wins on the day to lead overnight, one point ahead of Dan Venables and Nathaniel Gordon (Sutton/Parkstone). Other race winners on the day were the pairings of Bobby Hewitt and Harvey Martin (Leigh & Lowton/Ogston), all girl team of Courtney Bilbrough and Harriet Ward (HISC) and the mixed team of Hattie Rogers and Ben Batten, Hattie being a newcomer to the fleet and showing excellent form.

Sunday arrived with the same blue skies, but a contrasting wind strength of a steady 14-18 knots greeted the sailors and bigger waves.

And indeed Sunday turned out to be a completely different day, with conditions favouring the heavier teams. Of note was the dominant performance on the day by James Grummet and Daniel Budden (Leigh & Lowton/Burwain) to take 3 race wins to climb to overall fourth but could not overhaul the unassailable lead of Crispin and Tom who put together an impressive race series and won the event with a race to spare and a 10 point margin. Oliver Aldridge and Jamie Jobson (Poole/Torbay) were the other race winners on that day.

Overall Bobby and Harvey finished second, with Dan and Nathaniel one point behind in third. First juniors were Elliot Wells and Josh Boniface (HISC) in 8th overall and first ladies were Hannah Bristow and Emily Covell (HISC) in 9th overall with a good Sunday of results.

Prize winners at the Harken 29er Grand Prix at Torbay - photo © Sally Budden

The next Harken Grand Prix event will be held at Hayling Island Sailing Club on the 10th/11th October.

Overall Results: