Friendship Race at Whitehaven Sailing & Boating Association
by Mik Chappell 25 Jul 2013 21:08 BST
20 July 2013
Last Saturday Whitehaven Sailing and Boating Association held their annual Friendship Race. This is a long standing title for a race where all the other cruiser sailing clubs from around the Solway Estuary are invited and which invariably coincides with a social gathering.
The pre-weekend forecast was for very little wind and there was some concern that, having attracted boats from other venues, the race would have to be abandoned. In fact only one visiting boat arrived. This was the mighty "Happy Cat" with Ray Kerr at the helm which was sailed over from its home berth near Dumfries.
The forecast was right and wind was in very short supply, but there were eleven Whitehaven based entrants making the overall fleet the largest of the year to date. The wind direction varied between West and South and a short course was set covering two laps from the start line off Haig Pit to a buoy laid off Whitey Rock to the North of the Harbour.
All competitors found the north bound legs with the wind largely astern hard going and no vessel was able to significantly break away.
Conditions appeared to improve slightly on the return legs where boats were close hauled and heading into any wind there was. But it was all relative and the leading boat in the fleet took over two hours to complete the course. To illustrate how close the racing was, all boats had completed the course and were heading back to the Marina twenty minutes later.
To prove that the boat handicapping system works well, it was the smallest boat in the fleet and the last finisher which was declared the race winner on this occasion. This was the Mirage 28 helmed by Bill Hurst who beat Steve Benn's Hallberg Rassey 31 by just over thirty seconds. The Club's Sailing Secretary, David Fletcher in his Nicholson 30 Half Ton, was third on this occasion.
At the mid point in the season David Fletcher leads the Club's championship standings from the Sigma 33 of Laurie Clark with Alan Walker's Regina 35 in third place. Despite points only being awarded down to fifth place, no less than twelve boats have scored points in the Series showing its popularity and diversity.
All boats were hurriedly packed away following this round so that competitors could join the annual Berth Holders' Party which was being hosted by the management and staff of the newly enlarged Whitehaven Marina.