Contessa 26 National Championships at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club

by Mike Harrison 17 Sep 2019 06:35 BST 7-8 September 2019

The Contessa 26 National Championships were hosted by Royal Lymington Yacht Club on 7 and 8 September. In a predominantly light airs event the club provided some excellent racing under PRO Malcolm Mckeag.

Three races were run for three Classes, Class 1 (IRC) class 2 (Class Handicap) and Class 3 (Local Handicap - white sails) with additional tandem results for combined overall Class handicap results. The course format for all three classes were round the cans type racing.

For the first time the event had an international flavour, with Kurt Brewee entering Bijou from Belgium, who was well rewarded for his efforts with an overall win in Class 2 over previous Class 2 champion Richard Pickance in Thousand Knights III.

The results for both Classes 1 and 2 went to the wire and were last race cliff hangers. In Class 1 the well sailed Brizo of George Smith and his young local contemporary crew including Hattie Rogers won race 3 which gave them the win in Class 1 and overall on countback from Jiminy Cricket (M and B Harrison), with Ross and Sarah Appleby's High Potential finishing third on overall points and the beautifully and recently refurbished Coco of Parkstone (Peter Saxton) in fourth place.

In Class 3 Rumpul recently acquired by Victoria McPherson and sailed with husband Sandy and their six year old daughter making up the family crew were the winners over Bob Lombardelli's Alboran.

Overall Results: (overall place in brackets)

Class 1
1. Brizo (George Smith) (1)
2. Jiminy Cricket (Mike and Barbara Harrison (2)
3. High Potential (Sarah and Ross Appleby) (3)
4. Coco of Parkstone (Peter Saxton) (4)
5. Elinor (Rupert and Justin Houlton) (7)

Class 2
1. Bijou (Kurt Brewee) (6)
2. Thousand Knights III (Richard Pickance) (5)
3. Curvaceous (Deborah and Mark Arnold) (8)
4. Little Corina (Wayne Barker) (10)
5. Sulali (Simon Jollands) (11)
6. Seahorse (Diana Nicholson) (13)

Class 3
1. Rumpul (Victoria McPherson) (8)
2. Alboran (Bob Lombardelli) (12)

Pos	Boat Name	Class	Sail No	Skipper	Club	Class Handicap	R1	R2	R3	Pts
1st	Brizo	IRC 1	1223	George Smith	RLymYC	0.76	3	1	1	5
2nd	Jiminy Cricket	IRC 1	1251	Mike & Barbara Harrison	ISC & CCYC	0.76	1	2	2	5
3rd	High Potential	IRC 1	2	Sarah & Ross Applebey	RLymYC	0.76	2	3	7	12
4th	Coco of Parkstone	IRC 1	2790	Peter Saxton	Royal Yacht Squadron	0.76	6	4	3	13
5th	Thousand Knights III	Class 2	320	Richard Pickance	‑	0.745	4	7	6	17
6th	Bijou	Class 2	114	Gurt Brewee	WSVNB	0.744	7	5	5	17
7th	Elinor	IRC 1	3767	Rupert & Justin Houlton	RLymYC	0.757	5	6	8	19
8th	Curvaceous	Class 2	177	Mr & Mrs Arnold	LTSC	0.744	9	8	4	21
9th	Rumpul	Class 3	133	Victoria McPherson	Royal Southern Yacht Club	0.735	11	9	9	29
10th	Little Corinna	Class 2	224	Wayne Barker		0.744	8	10	12	30
11th	Sulali	Class 2	305	Simon Jollands		0.744	10	11	10	31
12th	Alboran	Class 3	192	Robert Lombardelli	RSolYC	0.73	12	12	11	35
13th	Seahorse	IRC 1	184	Diana Nicholson	Royal Yacht Squadron	0.744	DNC	DNC	DNS	42