Helly Hansen Warsash Spring Series - Day 6
by Louise Nicholls 30 Apr 2018 15:21 BST
29 April 2018
Apart from the first cancelled weekend of the Helly Hansen Warsash Spring Series, this year's series has been characterised by generally light winds, however on Sunday during the last race we did see up to 15 knots out of the North.
As always with the wind off the mainland shore, big shifts were evident, and success went to those boats who managed to play the shifts correctly.
The White Committee boat set up courses on a 020-degree axis and adjusted the length as the breeze varied.
Despite being a small fleet, the quarter tonners provided good starting entertainment with one boat being fractionally early in the first two starts.
The J/70s did their normal routine of treating their first start as practice start, with a big bulge of boats in the middle. Subsequent starts under black and then U flags, saw their starts returning to their normal good standard.
In the last J/70 race the increasing breeze allowed these small boats to start planing which gave them an exhilarating end to the series.
From an entry of 30 J/70s, DSP (Douglas Struth) sailed consistently well to win this class from Peggy (Jon Powell) and Offbeat (David Mcleman).
The standard of sailing in the J70s is high and I am reliably (I doubt it!) informed that there are at least two world champions and the twice winning Nigerian GP14 National champion in the fleet!
First and second in the SB20 fleet were Dark and Stormy (Andrew Bell) and Trouble & Strife (George Barker) who reaped the rewards of taking part in all 12 races of the series. Newcomers Reach Around (Christian Sutherland) was third with an impressive string of results, and incidentally winning the SB20 fleet in the Spring Championship.
The Black Group had two races on Sunday starting near Goodall Roofing on the tail of the Bramble bank. The breeze was 8 to 15 knots NNE and two triangle sausage type races were set, using fixed and laid marks, starting with beats towards laid marks near the mainland shore off Lee-on-Solent, and forays across the main tide to the Ryde middle bank. A longer course set for the second race as the breeze increased.
In IRC1 Nifty (Roger Bowden) won the first race with Baraka GP (Peter De Graaf) second, while Pegasus Dekmarx (Malcolm Wooton) won the second race with Jitterbug (Cornel Ritkin) second. Pegasus is a Farr 30 (Mumm) optimised for speed and got into gear as the breeze increased with impressive pace.
Overall Sailplane (Rob Bottomley) has won the IRC1 series with Nifty (Roger Bowden) second and Dusty P (Richard Patrick) third.
Davanti Tyres (Chaz Ivill) won the first race in IRC2 with Malice (Mike Moxley) second. Redshift Reloaded (Ed Fishwick) won the second race with Davanti Tyres second.
With consistent results in the IRC2 series, Davanti Tyres has won overall with Malice second and Redshift Reloaded third.
IRC3 saw Elaine (Mike Bridges) win the first race with Jumblesail 2 (Rachel, David & Robert Hunt) second. In the second race Scarlett Jester (Jamie Muir) won with Xcitable (Peter & Sarah Hodgkinson) second.
Over the series Scarlett Jester is first with Xcitable second and Jumblesail 2 third.
In the J/109 fleet Jukebox (John Smart & Chris Copeland) won the first race with Diamond Jem (Robert Stiles) second, while in the second race Jiraffe (Simon Perry) won with Jukebox second.
This gave Jiraffe a good series win, with Jukebox second and Jago (Mike and Susie Yates) third. After the racing Simon (Jiraffe) said he had enjoyed the racing and the courses, and it had been a good series for the J/109s with ten boats taking part and most boats out most weekends.
It was close racing for the J/88s with Tigris (Gavin Howe) and J-Dream (David & Kirsty Apthorp) each getting a first and second on Sunday.
This also meant that over the series they were equal on points and final positions were separated on count back with J-Dream winning from Tigris with Jongleur (Richard Cooper) third.
IRC4 saw Stan The Boat (Toby Gorman) win the first race with Whooper (Giovanni Belgrano) second while Whooper won the second race with Gr8 Banter (Ian Handley) second.
This enabled Stan The Boat to win the series with Gr8 Banter second and Prospero of Hamble (Allan Fraser) third.
So overall as PRO Peter Bateman commented "A chilly day but excellent sailing conditions and some great racing; a good finish to the Series and the Championships."
More information and full results at www.warsashspringseries.org.uk/2018/index.htm