Flying Fifteen Southern Championship at Parkstone Yacht Club

Flying Fifteen Southerns at Parkstone © David Harding / www.sailingscenes.co.uk

Flying Fifteen Southerns at Parkstone © David Harding / www.sailingscenes.co.uk

The Flying Fifteen Southern Championship was hosted by Parkstone Yacht Club over the weekend of 11 & 12th June. There were 34 entries from all parts of the country and including two boats from France and one from Ireland. The Flying Fifteen World Championship is being held at Hayling Island Sailing Club in July and many of the top helms came along for the last opportunity before the Worlds to compete in an open sea event.

On the Saturday, conditions did not disappoint. The forecast had been for 10 knots or so and rain showers. The fleet sailed out to Poole Bay in just those conditions (with some pretty chilly downdrafts from the rain clouds). The wind then became variable as the scheduled time of the Warning Signal approached. PRO, Bryan Drake, signalled a postponement. This prompted the wind to settle down at 10 knots from the south west and the sun to come out. Bryan was then able to get the first race under way with a delay of only ten minutes.

The wind was fair across the course and there did not seem to be any particular advantage whichever side of the beat was chosen. The wind shifts were fairly small but sufficient for competitors to need to take advantage of them. The course was triangle/ sausage/ triangle and the leader at the end of the first lap was Charles Apthorp of Hayling Island Sailing Club, crewed by Gavin Tappenden. He was followed by Alan Bax, crewed by Bill Masterman, also from Hayling Island SC. Apthorp and Tappenden maintained their lead but there was much place swapping amongst the first half dozen boats. Steve Goacher and Phil Evans from Royal Windermere Y.C. moved up into second place in the second lap but Apthorp maintained his place at the front to win. As Charles Apthorp later acknowledged, the postponement had been quite helpful to him as he would have been late for the start if it had been at the scheduled time.

By the start of the second race the breeze had begun to increase and it built steadily over the duration of that race so that, by the time of the third and final race of the day, it was at 16 to 18 knots but still very steady and varied by only about 15 degrees in direction. All the time the sky was clear blue and the sun was sparkling on the wave tops. If this may tend towards the poetic, it has to be explained that the conditions were absolutely superb. Sun, wind, surfing down the ever building wave pattern and a fleet of evenly matched boats. As one knowledgeable sailor put it afterwards, this was “champagne sailing”.

Race two saw Apthorp and Tappenden take the lead on the first lap but then slipped back into second place as Simon Potts, crewed by Tim Harper, took the lead and held it to the finish. Charles held second place to the finish, followed by Justin Waples and Iain Stowe from Royal Corinthian Y.C. Race three saw Apthorp take the lead for the first lap but Waples and Stowe overtook them and were still ahead by a couple of boat lengths at the windward mark of the final lap. Apthorp, however, managed to regain the lead and, once more, was first across the line with Justin second and Mike and Gemma McIntyre in third place.

After a long beat back to Parkstone Y.C., all competitors were ready to round off a good day’s sailing with a wine tasting conducted by Justin Waples of Waples Wines. Not surprisingly this was a very, and increasingly, social occasion The wines selected included well known grape varieties but from producers selected by Justin to introduce a slightly different, and very acceptable, approach to the finished product as compared with normal expectations. All this was enjoyed against a backdrop of the sun going down over the Purbeck Hills.

The weather forecast, however, warned of dark clouds over the horizon. By Sunday morning a complex low had come in. The average wind speed at the entrance to Poole Harbour was 30 knots and increasing. Poole Bay was obscured by driving rain and the outlook was for worse. There was little option but to cancel the day’s racing. This left Charles Apthorp and Gavin Tappenenden convincing and worthy winners of the Southern Championship Trophy with Simon Potts and Tim Harper the runners up. The first Parkstone boat was Chris Gorringe, crewed by Nadia Hosie.

The Race Management and hospitality from Parkstone Yacht Club was to their usual excellent standard.

Overall Results: