Harken Optimist Open at Royal Lymington Yacht Club

A record 126 entrants for the Harken Optimist open at Lymington © Jane Porter

A record 126 entrants for the Harken Optimist open at Lymington © Jane Porter

Attracts record 126 entrant

The Harken Royal Lymington YC Main Fleet Optimist Open, sponsored once again by Harken, took place over the weekend of 9 & 10 June in the Western Solent. This year’s event was also designated by the International Optimist Class Association UK (IOCA) as a Super Grand Prix, part of a UK wide travellers series sponsored by Rooster Sailing, and a record 126 Optimist sailors from all corners of the UK converged at Lymington for the weekend.

The International Optimist is a highly successful and competitive class for juniors – many of our top Olympic sailors started their racing careers in Optimists – and the sailing is to a very high standard despite the young age (8-15 years) of the competitors. The Optimist celebrates its Diamond Jubilee in 2007 and continues to attract and retain many talented young sailors through its training programme around the country.

Most local open events include a “Main Fleet” for experienced sailors and a “Regatta Fleet” for those new to racing; at Lymington and other sea venues the requirement is becoming standard for Main Fleet entrants to have competed at least twice in Main Fleet at an IOCA event such as Inland Championships, Nationals or End of Seasons. This weekend was “Main Fleet only” with the Regatta Fleet scheduled for next weekend as a separate event.

Strong tides were always going to be the main challenge for PRO Geoff Stock this weekend but Saturday dawned fine, and by the time the whole fleet had sailed down the river and a short way to the west, the sea breeze had already settled to a pleasant Force 3 and the tide had just started to flood.

Nevertheless, whilst some sailors were able to drop back from above the line just before the first start at 12.30 and get out to the starboard side closer to the shore, others took a good 3 minutes to clear the start line!

The Carentec course with inner or outer loop signalled before the starts required some alertness on the part of the sailors and cost first race leaders Matt Wallis and Alex Mothersele a number of places.

The 3 back to back races were punctuated by swathes of dense fog which brought a sudden chill and an eery gloom, and caused temporary concern to safety officer David Minors and his team of safety ribs, but they swirled on their way leaving hazy sunshine again. The breeze however dropped and by Race 3 was barely 5 knots.

Local sailor and National Champion Phil Sparks (Royal Lymington Yacht Club) won 2 of the 3 races – in the third race he finished at least 90 seconds ahead of anybody else – and came 2nd in the other to count only 4 points by the end of Saturday’s racing.

In the challenging conditions against an ever stronger flood tide others had a mixture of good and not so good results: the closest placed to Phil by the end of Saturday were David Pain (Cardiff Bay) with 11th, 4th and 3rd, and Hermione Stanley (Oxford SC) with 4th, 6th, 8th, both on 18 points. Christian Townrow with 1st and 6th but counting 38th, Ben Harden with 3rd and 4th but also counting 33rd, and Tarra Gill Taylor with 11th and 2nd but counting 48th, were looking forward to a discard in the fourth race on Sunday morning…

…which dawned once again fine but with very little breeze. The entire fleet was towed towards Hurst Spit to escape the worst of the tide, but even there the ebb was so strong that the first start just before noon had to be abandoned with many sailors over the line. The wind such as it was moved to the south, the course was repositioned and a good race was sailed – good especially for girls with Anna Burnet (Royal Northern & Clyde) and Hermione Stanley finishing in 1st and 2nd places respectively and also for Ben Harden who clocked up another 4th. Meanwhile with the tide now flooding and the wind having gone further to the south, many sailors found themselves beating to the reach mark.

In the fifth race the breeze died during the first beat. There were some winners notably Harry Derbyshire and Jess Lavery (both Emsworth SC) but for most the battle to get around the windward mark became ever more frustrating, and with many sailors coming in together on port tack might prevailed over right at times. With a few having finished the race, many of the fleet were timed out which was a disappointing finish to an otherwise excellent weekend’s racing.

Final results: local sailor Phil Sparks won for the 2nd consecutive year on a commanding total 7 points. Hermione Stanley was 2nd on 20, Anna Burnet 3rd on 23, Christian Townrow 4th on 38, and Aaron Smith (Papercourt SC) 5th on 40. First junior (12 and under) was David Pain in 10th overall, and Josh Sparks (Royal Lymington) following in Phil’s footsteps aged just 11 finished in a commendable 11th place.

Prizes donated by Harken were presented by Royal Lymington YC Commodore’s wife Marilyn Holmes and Olympic Silver Medallist and local “boy” Nick Rogers, taking a break from his hectic international schedule to support the young aspiring sailors.

In addition all competitors received a discount voucher from Rooster Sailing who are sponsoring the IOCA Super Grand Prix Series, which encourages sailors to travel to other areas’ Open Events this summer.

Ros Urwin, Head of Optimists at RLYC and organiser of the event, thanked the many volunteers involved in making the weekend a success and expressed appreciation to Waitrose Lymington, who generously provided on the water lunches for the safety fleet.

Overall Results: