Oceanair International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week at Hayling - Day 1

International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week day 1 © Mary Pudney

Itchenor's Archie Massey & Harvey Hillary sit tied at the top of the leaderboard with Stu Bithell & Sam Pascoe from Castle Cove SC after the first two light wind races of the International Prince of Wales Cup Week held in Hayling Bay.

Joint leader Archie Massey said, "We won the second race which was good. It was a solid, clean race and we called some lay-lines from a long way out which is always pleasing. In the first race we gybe set when we probably shouldn't have done which cost us a comfortable lead, and that was a bit annoying. We're happy with where we are overall - we thought Stuart & Sam might be a bit quicker and now I think maybe we've got an edge - we'll see!"

On the weather for the rest of the event Archie said, "It's looking light - part of me wants to see Stu experience 14's in proper boat-breaking weather and see how he gets on!"

Crew Harvey Hillary said, "It was the best we'd sailed for a long time. I thought we sailed really well through the chop today and that made the difference. That and spectacular lay-line calls from Archie which made my job easy!"

International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week day 1 - photo © Mary Pudney

Sam Pascoe, sailing with Stuart Bithell, told us about their day, "Very gusty and shifty out there and surprisingly choppy. I guess Hayling Bay is always a bit like that. We had up to 12 knots and down to 5 or 6 knots in the lulls - up and down. The rain clouds were causing chaos."

Sam continued, "We let Archie bang hard right in the second race which was what it was all about basically - getting into the tide that was coming out of the harbour. We won the first race but should have pushed the start harder in the second race. It's always a bit nerve-wracking getting these things off the start line - we went for the clear air and he went for the risky strategy of starting on the committee boat and it worked out for him."

On his new helm for the event Sam commented, "Very good - he definitely knows what he's doing - I can't give Glen (Truswell) the sack though as it's his boat!"

Stuart Bithell & Sam Pascoe on International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week day 1 - photo © Mary Pudney

Stuart said of the day, "It's our 4th day in the boat together so I wasn't expecting too much, but it seems to be going really well."

On other boats in the fleet Sam said, "The new Beiker 6 of Andy & Tom (Partington) seems to be going really well. They've made a good step up with that which is good to see. Chris Turner of Ovington Boats has done a bit of a redesign on it and it looks like a really nice boat now."

Andy Partington said of his new boat, "We launched it about 3 weeks ago. It's really a development of several boats over the last few years and we've been trying to refine them each time. This has lots of improved internal structures and is a lot stiffer - it's not necessarily the ultimate boat, but it's where we wanted to get to."

Andy & Tom Partington on International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week day 1 - photo © Mary Pudney

On the key changes Andy said, "We've moved the shrouds back which gives you a stiffer triangle for holding the mast and there's a different internal structure which enables us to use higher rig tension. Then there are a few internal layout changes which just make the boat that bit more comfortable to sail - nothing radical, just refinements based on sailing the previous generations of boats. We haven't really changed the under the water shape at all. It feels like a very refined and comfortable boat to sail - I'm not fighting it all the time."

On his rig Andy said, "We're using the same rig, sails and foils as our previous boat - we moved everything onto the new hull as we didn't want to change too much. That's all business as usual for us. We've been using Mike's (Lennon) sails for the last couple of years and they're good."

It's looking unlikely that the Prince of Wales Cup race (the one race National Championship for the International 14 class) will be held on Friday as very little wind is forecast.

Results after Day 1: