Hayling Island Sailing Club RS Elite Sprint Racing

Even if one or two crew had their doubts, rain, thunder and lightning didn't deter 10 RS Elites from making their way to the start line in shallow water on the Pilsey Sand for four, two-lap 20 minute races over a windward-leeward course. With the West/South West wind speed anywhere between 8 and 25 knots, gear changes were essential to keep up to speed.

Race 1 saw Way to Blue (24 – Nick and Kate Peters and John Rees), Shaken Not Stirred (7 – Colin, Paul and Jamie Smith) and Legs Eleven (Paul and Caroline Fisk and Martin Grady) neck and neck round the windward mark with Urafiki (92 – Team Yearsley) in hot pursuit. Shaken Not Stirred chose the left hand side of the run to surge ahead into a clear lead by the leeward gate, leaving Legs Eleven and Urafiki in their wake to pick up second and third respectively.

Shaken Not Stirred and Legs Eleven made a clean break in Race 2, swapping places around the two lap course, with Shaken Not Stirred again making the most of the left hand side of the last run to overtake Legs Eleven and take a second win with Way to Blue pulling through to third.

Having sailed two faultless races, Shaken Not Stirred erred on the side of safety to restart after an individual recall in Race 3 when they didn't need to, leaving Legs Eleven, More T Vicar (67 – Cameron Stewart, Mitch Webb and Jo Thomas) and Urafiki to fight out a close race with Legs Eleven eventually breaking clear from More T Vicar in second, Urafiki third with Shaken Not Stirred recovering to fourth.

So, after three races, Legs Eleven and Shaken Not Stirred had opened a gap on the pack on 5 and 6 points respectively. Third place was a three-way fight between Urafiki and More T Vicar on 11 points each, with Way to Blue just one point behind on 12.

After a poor start in Race 4, Legs Eleven were lucky to find themselves on the favourable side of a 20 degree wind shift on the first beat to arrive at the windward mark hot on the heels of Shaken Not Stirred and Way to Blue. A quick gybe-set allowed Way to Blue and Legs Eleven to get the better of Shaken Not Stirred down the one-sided first run with all three boats rounding the leeward gate within a few boat lengths of each other. With nothing in it up the second beat, Way to Blue held their nerve to round the weather mark first, followed by Shaken Not Stirred and Legs Eleven who were to settle the series in their own match race on the final run.

While Way to Blue cruised away to a comfortable race win, Shaken Not Stirred and Legs Eleven engaged in a series of serious luffing matches with Legs Eleven just managing to make a break by gybing first in the sprint to the finish line, squeaking past Shaken Not Stirred by the narrowest of margins to finish the race second and take the series overall from Shaken Not Stirred with Way to Blue in third.

Many thanks to Race Officer Paul Childs and team for some excellent, no-nonsense sprint racing. The Sundowner evening series continues this week with the next Pennant Racing set for the weekend of 9/10 July.

Overall Results: