Illusion Inter Club Team Racing at Bembridge Sailing Club
by Mike Samuelson 30 Nov 2015 07:17 GMT
28-29 November 2015
The wet and very windy forecast for the weekend was so dire that the chances of this year's Illusion Team Racing at Bembridge running did not look promising, however fortunately there was a weather window on Saturday morning and we not only managed to complete the seven flight round robin, but also a best three race final before the water disappeared and the gales arrived. A good decision, Sunday's conditions, even in the harbour would have ruled out any racing.
After a short briefing in the Illusion Park on Saturday morning, sixteen Illusions (eight teams of two) were soon afloat but then had to wait until there was enough water in the middle of the harbour and the Race Committee had managed to anchor Trio fore and aft because of the strong flooding tide and set the course in the reasonably benign conditions for the first couple of flights.
With something of a mix of Club teams, it was perhaps no great surprise that the two most experienced teams ended up in the finals, last year's winners Raymond & Colin Simonds from SVYC, and Jo & Mark Downer from RVYC. However racing during the round robin was much closer than it has been more a number of years, and even the experts could not afford to relax. The unknown Army Sailing Association team of David Peerless & Andy Snell, certainly proved to be a force to be reckoned with. David has sailed an Illusion a few times before, however it was Andy's first outing so to win the first race against Ed Eddy and Xander Shaw was impressive and showed that a sound knowledge of the team racing rules could outweigh experience sailing an Illusion.
The second flight brought a slight shock when the RTYC team of Richard Ambler & Andy Christie beat the Downer's in a very close race. Indeed they were the only team to beat them during the round robin. It was just a pity that in the subsequent flights, they could not find the same boat speed and so by the end of the round robin could only muster three wins. Having lost to Downer's in the third flight in an even closer race with the potential to beat them still open as they closed the finish line within feet of each other, the Simonds's were surprisingly also beaten in the sixth flight by the EWCC team of Mike Toogood & Guy Mattinson.
Despite having to endure torrential rain and squalls as racing progressed, at the end of the twenty eight round robin it was decided that as there was still plenty of water to crack on with the finals and the petit finals. However, although the two top teams of RVYC & SVYC were easy enough the identify, it turned out there were three teams each with four wins (ASA, BSC & RYA (James Meaning & Philip Bown) and splitting out the top two for the petit final was simply not possibly as they had each beaten the other! Slightly disappointingly therefore it was decided to only run a best of three race final between the Downers and the Simonds and to let everyone else go back the warmth of the BSC.
Both races could have gone either way and although no penalties were called for in the first one, there was a lot of shouting particularly at the second windward mark in the second race. However with the Chief Umpire Barry Dyer well position close to the mark he decided in favour of Mark in an incident with Raymond and by the time Raymond realised it had gone against him, his team mate, brother Colin, had insufficient time to hold off Mark & Jo so that Raymond could catch up and not come in last. So although the records will show a 2-0 win by RVYC, it was a very exciting & close run result.
As always a credit to the organisers, Race Officers and Umpires. The next Illusion Regatta is over the weekend of 12th & 13th December - the Christmas Cracker.