White Hart Race at Southwold Sailing Club
by Jeremy Taylor 16 Apr 2007 15:32 BST
15 April 2007
Seven lasers and one Mirror for the White Hart Race at Southwold SC © Jeremy Taylor
Southwold Sailing Club held their opening race of the season on Sunday in conditions that felt more like mid-July than early April. Bright sunshine and a light westerly breeze meant short wetsuits and suncream were the order of the day rather than the drysuits and thermals normally required for this race!
Seven lasers and one Mirror made the trip under the Bailey Bridge to race up the River Blyth to Blythburgh for the White Hart Race Trophy.
The best start came from the laser of Jez Taylor and he led up the first beat followed by Mark Nowell and Greg Brown.
Nowell and Taylor soon got into a tacking duel as they beat up the narrow stretch of river and while they discussed the rules of river racing Dirk Bougard caught up and at one point took the lead.
Positions continued to swap and change between the lead 3 boats as they tacked up the river with nobody able to gain an advantage.
As the fleet tuned downwind the race became more like the Grand National of the previous day with many place changes and fallers (or in this case running aground!)
Nowell began to stretch out at the front still chased by Bougard and Taylor with Cath Fox and Geoff Brown making rapid progress behind.
Taylors challenge came to an abrupt halt as he ran aground while trying to sneak close to the river bank out of the tide and this allowed Fox through to 3rd closely followed by Brown.
As the fleet reached the widest stretch of the river the wind shut off completely and the race was on again as the 5 boats of Nowell, Bougard, Taylor, Fox and Brown all parked up within feet of each other.
Race Officer Johan Ribenfors took the sensible decision to shorten course and laid the finish line at the end of the heronry, it was then a case of who could drift to the finish the fastest, Taylor discovered he could drift as fast while capsized and overtook Fox in the process, but this was never likey to be a race winning strategy.
Geoff Brown briefly held the advantage, but it was Mark Nowell who found the breeze first and sailed across the finish line to take the win ahead of Dirk Bougard and Cath Fox.
The entire fleet was then towed back to Southwold before enjoying the great food (carrot and coriander soup, lasagne and treacle pudding with custard!) provided by Debbie Bougard.
Overall Results:
1st Mark Nowell, Laser
2nd Dirk Bougard, Laser
3rd Cath Fox, Laser
Next weekend the Spring Series begins, with 2 races back to back at sea. First start 11am. The bar will be open and hot food available from 12:30.
For more details and photos/video from the White Hart Race see the club website.