Hurricane 5.9 TT at Starcross Yacht Club
by Joe Buxton-Smith 31 Jul 2018 08:29 BST
21-22 July 2018
On a sunny and windy (eventually) summer weekend, three visitors came to join in with the SYC home fleet, currently the largest in the country, for a weekend of exciting racing. After an initial drift around the river, the Exe did its best, and funnelled in a fantastic sea breeze up river which got stronger as the races went on.
Twelve boats lined up to start a weekend of fast and close racing. To squeeze in four races on the first day, we used a sprint style format with about 40min races over a short Olympic course with more laps. This worked incredibly well, keeping racing close and interesting throughout, allowing little battles across the fleet, including some family ones! It made racers push throughout the race, as places were won and lost right to the wire. It isn't over till it's over (or you're on your side!).
STARBOARD! was heard widely across the course, or not so on some occasions, leading to the full RYA annex of shouts being used, but it was all taken in good competitive spirit and smoothed over in the bar after. So, DOOMBAR! was shouted instead the following day. We all agreed this sprint format worked well, keeping it for the second day and would recommend it for other events where possible.
The racing itself was dominated by SYC's Ben Cutler-Sharp and Kez Wiltshire winning all but their last race. There was a close fought battle for second and third with Stone SC's Trevor and Kylie Bawden winning the last race, nudging them in front of SYC's Doug and Isobel Smith. It was great to see two junior crews, Isobel and Tesni King compete in the championship, and we hope to see more making there way through the fleet in the future.
Big thanks go out to all those helpers who made the event possible and we look forward to sending a good SYC fleet to the Hurricane Nationals, Stokes Bay in late August.
See final results [PDF]