Illusion Ice Breaker Trophy at Bembridge Sailing Club
by Rudy Jurg 6 Jan 2014 06:31 GMT
4-5 January 2014
The weather forecast did not look promising, much of Great Britain on flood alert with a lot of rain and strong winds forecast. However those who made the effort to look at various weather forecasts could see that a small lull in conditions was predicted and this coincided with the start times of the Bembridge Illusion fleet.
On Saturday racing was postponed for 30min to let the wind drop from Force 7 to a more sedate Force 2-3 from a shifty westerly direction. Principal Race Officer Mike Samuelson laid a short course inside Bembridge Harbour which proved a challenge to read although the left hand side of the course seemed to work best.
This weekend proved a battle between Mark Downer and Graham Bailey for top spot. They would regularly swap places although they both also ended up mid fleet once. The real close battle was for third place overall between young gun Robbie Southwell, the brothers Colin and Raymond Simonds and Rudy Jurg. With Mark Downer and Graham Bailey sailed far in front but the boats behind them there was lots of place changing. Especially on the downwind legs some struggled to set wet and soggy spinnakers creating passing opportunities for those who had a better technique to set a spinnaker without a pole. In most races there was only inches between boats on the finish line.
No sooner had the boats returned to port after 3 races it started to rain hard again.
The forecast for Sunday did not look promising either but again a lull in the weather conditions produced a South Westerly a nice wind Force 4. The drizzle made it very cold. Again Mark Downer and Graham Bailey would have their own match race in front. The battle was in the middle and Robbie Southwell made some good starts and got a handle on his down-wind spinnaker technique to claim a fourth and two third places to claim third overall. There was only 2 points between him and the next 3 places. Close racing for a weekend everybody expected to be a wash out because of wind and rain.
The Ice Breaker trophy has been raced for since the mid 1980's and was won by Mark Downer, second Graham Bailey and a delighted Robbie Southwell came third.
Overall Results:
| Posn | Helm | Sail No | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | Pts |
|---|
| 3 | Mark Downer | 124 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| 1 | Graham Bailey | 132 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 |
| 7 | Robbie Southwell | 161 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 21 |
| 1 | Colin Simonds | 138 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 22 |
| 4 | Rudy Jurg | 158 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 23 |
| 5 | Raymond Simonds | 23 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 23 |
| 5 | Jo Downer | 123 | 6 | 2 | 9 | D | 8 | 4 | 29 |
| 7 | Julia Bailey | 157 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 9 | 33 |
| 10 | Robin Ebsworth | 12 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 45 |
| 11 | Steve Warren‑Smith | 146 | S | S | S | 5 | 8 | 10 | 47 |
| 9 | Andrew Blundell | 888 | 9 | 9 | 8 | S | S | S | 50 |
Race 2 Start
Race 3 Start
Race 4 Start
Race 6 Start