Hyde Sails 1st & 2nd at the Holt Tide Ride
by Hyde Sails 1 Nov 2005 15:14 GMT
The Holt Tide Ride is not the usual run of the mill event – held on very short courses with downwind gates takes a toll on all, especially those who inhabit the sharp end of these small, highly tuned craft.
Day one was a series of four general all in races. Four laps consisting of three gates and a port rounding windward mark (I’m not sure why it wasn’t a starboard rounding, just to add another layer of difficulty) all set in a 300 yard area in Chichester harbour. Four laps was just cruelty on behalf of the organisers. As the day went on any slickness onboard deteriorated, even legends like Paul Brotherton sailing with 14 ‘God’ and reportedly sailings best looking personality Zeb Elliot, took a swim in the waters of the harbour!
So it fell to another 14 legend and man of leisure, James Fawcett, ably assisted by Dave Dobrijevik -- when I say “assisted” it should really read the other way round. As it’s true in all racing that winning is a team effort, I think it’s fair to say in the tide ride, the Helm assists the Crew. It really is hard in the front end of the boat. It goes something like this……2 minutes to go, crew takes the main sheet, start , just get into your routine and it’s time to tack, approach the windward mark. Crew lets go of the Vang and Cunningham, swap main and jib with helm, ease jib as going in to hoist kite, hoist, grab sheet, back on the wire , gybe for gate 1 out on the wire, gybe for gate 2, back on the wire. Gybe for gate three. Approaching gate three drop the kite, hand jib to helm, take main, vang on ……settle and ready to tack.
That’s one lap!
So as I was saying James and Dave (BATT SAILS) had the best of day one with some close racing with Brotherton/Elliot (RWO) and Lennon/McKenna (HYDE SAILS). Hyde Sails shot themselves in the foot with an OCS, as did Charlie Duchesne. Hyde also managed to hit a mark in the only race they led, letting Batt take that win and RWO capsized whilst leading also allowing a BATT win.
So at the end of day one, Batt led taking 1 point to the final, RWO taking 2, Hyde 3 and Charlie Duchesne 4.
Whilst day one had been reasonably breezy day two was light and no mistakes. From the day one results the fleet was split in two for the semi finals. You had to finish in the top 6 to qualify. Hyde and BATT were nearest the pin out of the start in the first semi, sailing to the weaker tide side of the course. Hyde sailed over Batt in pretty short order and had a good lead at the top mark. Hyde took the race and Batt took 4th despite snapping 2 foot of the bottom of their centreboard a minute before the start. Although they qualified they could not win in this state, so they had to borrow a boat from a non-qualifier to hope to compete.
The second semi was won by RWO. So with all the favourites through, RWO now looked best placed, with Batt now sailing the spare! Hyde needed a boat between them and RWO to win providing Batt didn’t pull off a minor miracle.
Charlie Duchesne led at the top mark and with breeze freshening this would be a short race. Hyde slipped through on slightly better wind leading at gate three. Hyde held the lead till halfway down the 2nd run, RWO gybed tide side but picked up fresher wind and got inside Hyde at the leeward gate. So it was a drag race into the stronger tide with RWO on the inside and holding Hyde for speed. With the tide in full ebb, the beat was very short and RWO held their nerve to take the win and Tide Ride Championships 2005.
Charlie Duchesne took 3rd behind Hyde with Batt taking 6th having struggled with a completely different boat than normal.
For full results go to www.hisc.co.uk/tideride/tideride05/int14.htm
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