707 Eastern Championships at Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Burnham
by Bill Wright 5 May 2011 21:16 BST
30 April - 2 May 2011
The May bank holiday weekend saw the 707 Eastern area championships held at RCYC. The championships were contested by 8 boats, 5 from Burnham, 2 from Hartlepool & 1 from Scarborough. After the perfect sailing conditions of the previous few days & an excellent Beer Festival at the RCYC, it came as a bit of a shock to have to sail in 27plus knots of wind on the first day. The later start gave time for the race officer Kim Allen to set an almost perfect windward leeward course to the west side of the river Roach, which due to the constant wind direction didn’t need much tweaking for all three races of the day.
The first race got off to a good start for all of the fleet with the exception of John Lewis in Baby Beluga who decided that it was not very good trying to sail to windward with a Jib in 2 parts, so had to watch as a spectator for the next 3 laps. Richard Bavin in Racehorse led the fleet to the first windward mark followed by Dave Boatman in Outlaw & Paul Gray in Beaver Hunter closely followed by the rest of the fleet. Racehorse took a commanding lead down the run with only themselves & Beaver Hunter being quick to hoist their spinnakers, this then looked almost like a one (Race) horse race until a gust of wind & the wrong distribution of weight made for one of the most spectacular broaches of the day! The next 2 laps saw a closely fought race with Beaver Hunter, taking line honors from Outlaw, Andrew Hughes in Sharky & Racehorse. Unfortunately John Giles in Swallow had to retire with a detached forestay – there’s no excuse for poor boat maintenance - which meant he missed the next 2 races as well!
Race 2 got underway as soon as the last boat finished the first race, Beaver Hunter had a very poor start and its crew were surprised to be in contention at the windward mark, again the race was closely fought with Outlaw, Beaver Hunter, Racehorse, Mick Hill in Swordfish, Baby Beluga & Tom Patrick in Stormchaser. This was a tight fought race with Beaver Hunter just taking line honors from Racehorse with Outlaw 3rd & Swordfish 4th, with once again Baby Beluga having a slight problem with sails, this time it was the main which when it finished in 6th place it was only held together with the 707 logo!
There was no point in having a break between races as the wind was increasing, so the race officer soon got us under way for the 3rd & final race of the day. Again it was a closely fought race around the entire course, with Racehorse again showing the fleet how to do the most spectacular broach, Swordfish was keeping out of the deep channel because of the waves but took it too far & had to be towed off the north shore!! Baby Beluga with a replacement main & jib led the race from start to finish; Beaver Hunter came in 2nd with Outlaw 3rd.
Sunday morning was very much like Saturday but with a slightly increased wind but forecast to get even stronger later in the day, Mick Hill took this opportunity to take his rib out instead of Swordfish, thus gaining some good photos of the racing & acting of a second much needed safety boat. Race 4 got off to a good start with Racehorse, Baby Beluga, Stormchaser & Beaver Hunter challenging for the lead down the run, towards the leeward mark Beaver Hunter gybed but failed to hold the spinnaker in the gust that followed, with the outcome being that the jib got caught around the forestay, with no jib it was only a matter of time before beaver Hunter met the lee shore!! Without the threat of Beaver Hunter, Baby Beluga went on to win from Storm Chaser 2nd with racehorse 3rd. Sharky 4th and Swallow 5th.
With the wind at about 30 knots the 5th race got under way, again a close race to the windward mark with Swallow right up there with the leaders (but sadly OCS). On the first lap Baby Beluga & Racehorse got away from Beaver Hunter & stormchaser, but with a better angle on the last run Beaver Hunter passed Racehorse & caught up Baby Beluga with BB just crossing the finish line ahead of BH. Unfortunately just towards the last leeward mark Outlaw lost a crew member with a serious injury, with this & the increasing wind strength, the race officer abandoned racing for the day.
Monday saw an earlier start but the wind had increased with gusts over 35 knots, the race officer Kim Allen took the wise decision to cancel racing for the day, thus bringing the championship to an early conclusion.
Overall Results:
1st Paul Gray, Beaver Hunter 7046 (RCYC) 15pts
2nd Richard Bavin, Racehorse 7032 (RBYC) 16pts
3rd Dave Boatman, Outlaw 7041 (Hartleypool) 17.5pts
4th John Lewis, Baby Beluga 7033 (RBYC) 18pts
5th Tom Patrick, Stormchaser 7112 (SYC) 21pts
6th Andrew Hughes, Sharky 7062 (Hartlepool) 25pts
7th Mick Hill, Swordfish 7076 (RCYC) 37pts
8th John Giles, Swallow 7069 (RCYC) 41pts
Many thanks to Teresa Giles for the Hundreds of excellent photos