Rooster Southern Area Topper Travellers at Stokes Bay Sailing Club

The great turnout of Topper sailors competing in the Southern Area continued with 43 boats attending the Stokes Bay SC on 1st July for the 4th event of the 2017 Rooster Southern Area Topper traveller series.

Situated in the Eastern Solent, sailors were greeted with warm temperatures, a 6 to 10 knot westerly veering SW breeze, and neap flooding tide. For parents stuck ashore, the day coincided with the annual Round the Island Race giving ample spectating opportunities across the Solent panorama.

30 boats signed on for the 5.3 fleet and 13 4.2 sailors justifying separate race starts.

Many thanks to the Stokes Bay SC team for turning around 4 races on an excellent trapezoidal course with square start lines and Rooster Sailing for the continued sponsorship of the 2017 series and providing the highly sought after exclusive Rooster Southern Area visors for the sailors.

The next event will be at Chichester Yacht Club on Sunday 9th July – first race start planned at 11.40am.

5.3 Fleet report by Zoe Belben

Stokes Bay held the 4th in the series for the Southern Topper Travellers, which attracted 30 5.3 Toppers. The event was blessed with ideal sailing conditions of westerly force 2-3 and bright sunshine.

Stokes Bay offered its normal challenges of Solent current and chop which benefitted local sailors, who found that going inshore out of the current favoured massively. Zoë Belben took advantage of this by winning the first 3 races of 4 on the trapezoidal course. Dan Batty found the increase in wind to his favour and won the final race.

Zoë took her first open meeting win followed by Angus Kemp and Phoebe Hutchings. The series continues this coming weekend at Chichester.

4.2 Fleet report by Arran Goodman

With a smaller turnout than the previous event in Poole, thirteen 4.2 sailors competed in the regatta fighting for the top spaces. The course was a square with an upwind leg, a starboard reach, a downwind leg and a port reach before the finish. The winds started at around 15 – 20 knots, which made pleasing sailing conditions for the first race with Ollie Payne (Stokes Bay SC) in the lead, myself (Arran Goodman, Hill Head SC) in 2nd and Jude Smith (Stokes Bay) in 3rd.

The second race followed but the wind had dropped and with the ever-increasing tide coming down the race course, the windward mark became a struggle to lay. Dan Perkins (Warsash SC) won that race after rounding the mark before flying ahead with Jude in 2nd and myself in 3rd.

After the second race, everyone had noticed the strong tide when making the mark. Dan was in front, Ollie in 2nd and Charlie Gran (Chichester YC) in 3rd. Race 4 was the last race and the final chance to get a good place. The course had been shortened and it was a light wind race with some of the smaller sailors in front. It was on the reach just before the finish where places were made, but the 3 out in front were River Green (Poole YC) in 1st, Dan in 2nd and Ollie in 3rd.

Overall, Dan was in 1st, with 4 points, Ollie in 2nd, with 6 points, and I was 3rd with 9 points.

I learnt a lot about tidal sailing and thoroughly enjoyed the hot competition. I can't wait for the next one in Chichester on the 9th of July.

Overall Results: