Kent Schools Regatta at Medway Yacht Club

Action from the Kent Schools Regatta © Dave Webb

Action from the Kent Schools Regatta © Dave Webb

43 boats with crews aged 8 to 18 competed in the Kent Schools Regatta hosted this year by Medway Yacht Club.

Two races were sailed in the morning down river in a relatively open stretch of water, although the navigation bouys used as marks were somewhat duanting for the smaller sailors. Surprisingly steady in direction, the breeze varied between 5 & 12 mph. There was close racing between the Laser Radials, with the leaders keeping up with the full rigs. Chloe Martin won in her Radial, and Tim Ellis managed to pull away enough to take second in a full rig Laser, despite falling into the wind shadow of a large commercial dredger making passage up river.

The start of the second race was marred by the Umpire boat positioning itself 10m on the course side of the line, and stalling its engine as the gun went. Chaos and carnage ensued, as the competitors tried to avoid it, only to impact each other. When the engine was re-started, the boat accelerated so quickly, its wash completely swamped six competitors. The RS400 of Mitch Webb and Rob Waite pulled out a sufficient lead on this short race to take the win, with an emergingly consisted Peter Gray in a Radial second.

After lunch the course was moved upstream for the concluding two races. A dead run between trots meant that the asymetrics had no chance to gybe downwind, whilst the 3kt current and dying breeze severely disadvantaged the 20 Toppers in the fleet. Gray won race 3, and Martin got her second win in Race 4, with the equally consistent Ellis 2nd in both.

The race office and his team did well to complete the full programme of races, in what was a long, challenging, often frustrating, but ultimately very enjoyable day for the competitors.

Overall Results: