Rooster West Country Boat Repairs RS400 Southern Tour at Lee-on-the-Solent Sailing Club

The forecast for the Rooster RS400/600 Open Meeting at Lee on Solent was looking windy from early in the week. Discussions about a potential postponement had taken place, but in the end there looked like a reasonable window all day Saturday and Sunday morning so the decision was made to go ahead.

Indeed Saturday started fairly benignly with a nice 10 know SW breeze and although there were some impressive shower clouds the sea conditions were perfectly manageable and the Solent put on a good show with plenty of yacht racing in the near vicinity to the sailing club.

Twenty-two 400s were entered but a building wind a number didn't make it through the first race which got away after only a short postponement. The course set was also quite short and took the first boats just under 20 minutes to complete the two rounds so with an average of 5 minutes a leg it was fairly fast and furious. Also with the 600s starting first picking a way through an increasing number of 600 capsizes added interest. Local boat Mark and Julie Tucker were first round the windward mark followed closely by Steve and Sarah Cockerill, also from Lee. The Cockerill pair quickly took advantage of their superior downwind speed and pulled out a good lead eventually finishing first ahead of Sam Pickering and Emily Heath from Torpoint Mosquito. With such a short course there were a flurry of finishes in the next group making hard work for the number recorders on the committee boat and Bruce Mills and Andrea Jarman from Warsash got ahead of the pack to get third place.

In the second race the course was lengthened somewhat but in a perfect repeat the Tuckers rounded the windward mark first only to lose out to the Cockerills on the downwind leg once again. Steve and Sarah lost out to Sam and Emily on the second beat but when Sam and Emily hit the windward mark they had to do a 360 turn and the Cockerills regained their lead which they held to the finish despite a lot of pressure from Sam and Emily with Christopher Eames and Rachel Tilley from Queen Mary third.

Major wind shifts in the lead up to race 3, and calm seas to the west, but white horses visible to the east provided a tricky situation for the race committee to judge, but they attempted a start only to be foiled as mirror calm descended on the race course, leading to this to be abandoned before the first boat had made it to the windward mark.

However, the lull was short-lived. The wind returned with a bang gusting up to 28 knots and a short, nasty chop also set in. This time the Cockerills made it to the windward mark first followed by the Tuckers for an amazing ride downwind absolutely flat out. By now the carnage had extended to both fleets so the second round was all about keeping clear of the casualties. The Cockerills had a good lead and the Tuckers went too far before gybing so had to drop their kite on the approach to the line to secure second. In third place Lee boat Neil Bevington & Alan Skeens also misjudged the wind strength and went too far over to the starboard side of the course, and it looked as though they could have lost out to either of Bruce and Andrea, who were in a close tussle with Sam and Emily who had gybed earlier. However both boats then unfortunately capsized which left Neil and Alan to finish with the kite dropped but unscathed in 3rd.

Returning to the beach and recovering the boats then proved difficult enough in the challenging conditions but a great shore team rose to the occasion and prevented any further damage coming ashore.

In view of more strong winds forecast for the following day, the second day's racing was called off, so for the final results, Lee-on-Solent's Steve & Sarah Cockerill were 100% consistent with 3 first places, Bruce and Andrea second, Sam and Emily third and the Tuckers fourth.

Gordon Kingston-Minnis, the race officer, and his team went to enormous efforts to organise this event at short notice after some changes in Lee's plans and should be congratulated on managing to run a very successful event in such challenging conditions.

Visitors also remarked on the helpful and friendly experience of coming to Lee-on-Solent. Well done team LOSSC!

Overall Results: