‘Black Diamonds Solent Series success
by Hyde Sails 26 Oct 2010 16:26 BST
Mark Brown’s Hyde-powered Beneteau Figaro ‘Black Diamond’ takes first place in class and second overall in the recent Solent Points Series.
Over 100 boats took part in the Solent IRC series, which is now in its fifth year. Racing in four classes, the series took place mainly on Saturdays over a period of month, tagged on to various Solent club weekend regattas to add up to a seven-day series. Having finished fifth in class last year, Mark Brown and his crew were hoping to improve on their performance. The first day saw three races completed in light winds, and the crew made their mark, winning the first two before weed on their prop foiled their chances of a hat trick, dropping them to fifth in the day’s final race to post a second in class for the day. The following two days of racing didn’t go quite so well for the team, finishing fifth, then sixth, before lifting themselves to post a fourth and two seconds, and finishing on a high winning the final day. It was enough to give them class series victory, and second place in the series overall.
Mark Brown bought ‘Black Diamond’ - the first Beneteau Figaro 1 to be built - in 2009, getting her new sails from Hyde just before Cowes Week, where the team got a seventh. Mark explains his reasons for choosing Hyde: “Hyde and Paul Austin had been making cruising sails for my charter yachts and I knew they were making fast sails for 40.7s and knew Paul would be a key ingredient in getting the sail plan verses handicap that we wanted. The sail we love best is the big Hyde runner (big bertha) as we know we can always gain some places when going downwind.”
In reaction to the Solent Series result, Mark said: ‘I’m chuffed that our good crew work and tactics have paid off. This will give us a reminder that we can go out and keep winning knowing the yacht can do it and all we have to do is make sure we change gear for the current wind strength, which is where we have been going wrong on the not so good results.”
He added: “We have been struggling when wind picks up to number 3 weather so have just had Hyde 3 built but have not had a chance to use it so we are expecting great things for next year!”
For more information, see www.hydesails.com or contact Paul Austin (T: +44 (0) 7801 907458).