Hansa GUL VR Series 2 competition hots up!
by David Durston 13 Aug 2020 05:52 BST
Paul Pearson during Hansa GUL VR Series 2 © Hansa class
Following the success of the first Hansa GUL VR Series, the Hansa Class UK decided to continue with a second ten event series.
Although some of the sailors have been able to return to some limited actual sailing, the continued threat of COVID-19 and social distancing guidance has prevented the Class Association from staging any events this season. Sailors have been keen to get their weekly dose of racing and the series is being fiercely contested, with many players practicing regularly to hone their skills, the standard is going up and up. This was borne out by recent performances in the RYAs Multiclass regatta, with 7 of the 15 qualifying finalists being Hansa sailors. The action, and results from that event were covered with commentary and analysis:
We have now completed 5 weeks of racing, with 8 races being run each week. Now at the halfway point, the table is starting to shake up. What has been interesting has been the number of sailors who have won races, 10 out of the 17 regular competitors can make that claim. Also several sailors have shown significant improvements, challenging the old guard for the top positions.
In the last two weeks Paul Pearson has had 5 bullets, having finished in 13th place in the first series. He didn't make a great start to the 2nd series, but since having a week off he is starting to climb the table. Kate Whyatt has been steadily, quietly improving, and after some consistently good results is now challenging for one of the top spots. But the stellar performance has come from Paul Holzherr, pseudo name Herrholz; who has overtaken the previous series prize winners to take the top spot with a 12 point lead. If you're a regular Virtual Regatta player, you will often see his name high in the rankings.
So five weeks in there have been 40 races. Taking the best 50% of results the top 3 are: Paul Holzherr, Paul Phillips, and David Durston. There are still another 40 races to go, with only 40 races to count over the whole series, so there is still all to play for. There are at least 7 sailors easily within reach of a podium place. It will be interesting to see if the skills developed on VR will transfer to the water next season, hopefully with fewer collisions!