Sprint 15 Southern Championships at the Open Dinghy Club
by Keith Bartlett 24 Jun 2009 09:23 BST
20-21 June 2009
Sprint 15 Southern Area Championship winner Erling Holmberg receiving his prize from ODC Commodore Vic Smith © Keith Bartlett
Race One was held in F3/F4 winds. At the end of the first lap it was Stewart Pegum leading from Gordon Goldstone, but with Erling Holmberg very close behind. Holmberg took the lead early into the second lap, but Pegum found a way past, leaving Holmberg 2nd and Goldstone 3rd.
After the lunch break, the wind had increased to F4 for Race Two. After a clean start, the fleet got away to 3 high speed laps, flying hulls on the reaches, and enjoying some good surfing on the run. Holmberg managed to keep in front with Rickard 2nd and Goldstone a consistent 3rd .
Race Three followed the same pattern at the front, but in the chasing pack, ODC’s Terry Nowell provided some good spectator footage of a 90 degree capsize near the windward mark, finished off by an elegant forward flip on to the tramp as the boat came up.
On Sunday with lighter F2/F3 winds Race 4 saw a good close start, with Holmberg powered off, followed by Goldstone and Bartlett. There was quite a lot of swapping of places in the lower orders, particularly down the run and on the two fetches. Holmberg was first again with Goldstone 2nd followed by Pegum 3rd.
The final (and 5th) race saw the wind drop down to F2, and start to swing around. Several boats misjudged the drop in wind speed and were over a minute adrift crossing the line. Again a lot of changing of order behind first placed man Holmberg, with Rickard storming thru the pack to take 2nd place.
Overall Results: (five races with one discard)
1st Erling Holmberg
2nd Chris Rickard
3rd Gordon Goldstone
4th Stewart Pegum
5th Keith Chidwick