Ramsgate Week 2017 - Day 3
by Martin Law 26 Jul 2017 08:10 BST
23-28 July 2017
The cruising classes were sent south from the start line at Ramsgate harbour 8 miles along the coast towards Dover, passing a mark off Deal Pier on the return. By luck, or possibly by clever design the spring tide was with the fleet the whole trip making for a speedy passage in relatively flat water and 13 - 17 kts breeze.
Donald Gray took the class 5 win in 'Blown Away' with Chris Denby's 'Raquel' in Second place. The Class 6 finishing order was very tight: David Appleton's Impala, 'Shoestring,' won by a margin of one second corrected time over Dennis Reijke's Mallemok. Third placed 'Mallard' sailed by Howard Bates was 29 seconds behind.
The IRC 1 course took the competitors between the north end of the Goodwin sands and Broadstairs, and proved a very eventful race. The Pronavia 42, Assassin, ran into a starting mark anchor line which became entangled with their underwater appendages, forcing a retirement.
A close match between the two Netherlands teams, Delft and Team Heiner, came to a luffing battle resulting in a protest and the disqualification of Team Heiner. Richards Matthew's Oystercatcher XXXI was placed first, Delft second and Kym and Heather Leatt's Kylla third. The top three placed boats for the IRC 1 series are now 1st Delft, 2nd Oystercatcher XXXI, 3rd Kylla.
The IRC 2 race was closely fought. Julian Poupard's Expedite came off the line first, impressively port tacking the fleet. A minor altercation between Cobra and Slingback triggered Slingback's kite to blow out. Slingback ran up another spinnaker and ploughed on, and through "Insightful use of the available windshifts, scored a third. Mike Brand's 'Foxy' was second and Slingshot scored another first to, a solid start to their series.
Full Results available at www.ramsgateweek.com/results-2017.php