Phantom Eastern Series open meeting at Ardleigh Sailing Club

Phantom Eastern Series at Ardleigh © Bob Stannard

Spring finally appeared to have sprung at Ardleigh Sailing Club as 17 Phantoms arrived for the first event of the ever-popular Phantom Class Eastern Series.

The format of the event included a training day on the Saturday and this attracted several sailors eager to get their skills up to speed after the winter lay off. Notably Phil Harlow from Great Yarmouth paid great attention to the onshore tuning talk and left with copious notes, sketches and photos. He even joined in the on the water coaching and practised his capsize drills...

Richard Nurse from Northampton (and P&B/GOAT) had kindly volunteered his services to show how sails were measured and gave a fascinating run down on how his boat is set up for racing. This highlighted how each sailors style of sailing differed with their boat setup.

The format for racing on Sunday was for three back-to-back races without discard and the fleet was boosted by Andy Hunt who had made a long journey from the Channel Islands to join the fun. With another 20 boats of different classes on the water things were going to be congested.

Phantom Eastern Series at Ardleigh - photo © Bob Stannard

The sun was out once again but unfortunately the wind was off the shore which meant a reaching start past the club house. It was always a gamble as to whether start to leeward in the wind or close to the start hut but in wind shadow.

The first race saw an impressive start from local helm Ian Hill sailing former class chairman Ian Millers old boat to lead the fleet for half the race. Ian will have to continue his progress in the class to learn to lead in the essential second half of the race.

The best part of the racing took place on the main part of the reservoir with a good windward leg from the nature reserve end up to the dam wall giving the fleet plenty of options. Banging a corner or tacking on the shifts up the middle seemed to be the only options but it soon became clear that David Royse with his Frensham Pond and Burghfield experience was finding conditions to his liking as he pulled through to win ahead of another visitor Andy Pyatt who had made the journey from Coombs sailing club in Derbyshire.

In third place was Mike Taylor from the home club having snatched the place from Chris Roberts by a cunning dash to leeward after rounding the dreaded mark off the club.

The second race was another clean start and this time the class coach made up for a poor start in the first race by taking the win ahead of David Royse and local hero Matt House.

Andy Pyatt in the Phantom Eastern Series at Ardleigh - photo © Bob Stannard

Recalls occurred in the third start and this time Richard Nurse decided that he'd already done enough to prove that the first race was a blip in his usual performance regime and called it a day with a return to the conveniently close launching slip. Other early starters included Marcus Ingram and Mike Taylor. Ingram from Up River was making a welcome return to the class and seemed to have lost none of his flair as he subsequently wove his way through the fleet to a commendable third place.

Similarly impressive was the performance of David Nicholls who also worked his way through to finish ahead of Ingram. Race winner however was evergreen Bob Portway who had recovered from a capsize in the first race and was very much back in his element at his home club.

With three different winners and a mixture of results the competitive nature of the racing and the vagaries of the venue summed up how most of us had our ups and downs.

The overwhelming sentiment was however grateful thanks to the club and the weather gods for turning on the Spring at long last and one of eager anticipation for the season ahead.

Eastern Area representative Bill Taylor who was nursing an injured back and had been observing had been tasked with calculating the overall results which revealed that David Royse had won the event ahead of Andy Pyatt with David Nicholls in third place.

The next Phantom Event is the Ovington Inlands at Grafham Water this coming weekend with the next Eastern Area event being at Stone Sailing Club on 5th/6th April. This is part of the National Super Series and is sure to be a well-attended event.

Phantom Eastern Series at Ardleigh - photo © Bob Stannard

Overall Results: