Ramsgate Week 2018 - Day 3
by Martin Law 24 Jul 2018 18:39 BST
22-27 July 2018
Sunshine and 7-8 kts from the South East greeted the competitors at the start line for the second Ramsgate Week series race.
The three cruising classes started from the RTYC club start line and were sent east upwind across the Northerly ebb tide. When a large right-hand shift half way up the beat favoured the boats on that side, several positions changed hands. During the two following close reaching legs the breeze rose and stabilized at around 10-12 kts.
The return to the finish line was by way of a four mile downwind leg and a short inshore circuit making for a three hour course.
Class 5 was won by Frank Barrett's Elan 333, Maverick, which puts them equal first in the in the series with Blown Away and Rush all on six points. Class 6 was won by Andy Ketteringham's Miss Amelia for the second day in a row putting them three points ahead in the series. Luna was second and Mallard only ten seconds behind in third. In Class 7 Andy Renshaw's Wild Rover was first putting them equal first in the series with Ken Welch's Splash.
IRC1 and 2 classes sailed a three hour course based on the old Olympic triangle-sausage-triangle. It called for brisk sail handling and all manner of code zeros, asymmetric and symmetric kites.
The IRC 2 class was a particularly close fought battle with the top five boats all coming in with two minutes of each other. The eventual winner was Vanilla, Niek Spiljard's X332 from WV Arne, Netherlands. Mike and Jo Brand's Foxy came second and Slingback in third.
IRC class 1 was won by another Netherlands boat, Team Heiner, a youth sailing academy in their Max fun 35. Kylla came in second putting them ahead in the series and Oystercatcher XXXI was third.
All results are at www.ramsgateweek.com