Pwllheli Autumn Series Weekend 2
by Vicky Cox 11 Oct 09:45 BST
9-10 October 2021
Glorious sailing conditions for Pwllheli Autumn Series Weekend 2 © Peter Dunlop
What an awesome Autumn weekend in Pwllheli on the second weekend of the Autumn series, part of the popular Pwllheli Challenge Series. Saturday forecasts were for very little wind but out on the water there was a decent 8-10 kts from the South.
The good racing conditions especially suited Nigel Ingram's Farr 30 - Wild Haggis, who gained an easy 1st in the first race and a 2nd in the second race. Peter Dunlop and Victoria Cox's J109 - Mojito continued their success in the series with a 2nd and 1st place.
Sunday brought a glorious autumn day with very light northerlies and it looked like the fleet would struggle around any course set by race officer Robin Evans. Luckily the winds filled in to around 7-14kts for some superb racing, enjoyed by spectators ashore.
Race one start line saw everyone ready for a very competitive race. Once round the first mark Mojito settled into the race with Wild Haggis speeding along under their symmetric kite. Mojito finished first but the corrected times saw Honey Bee and Harley Quinn take 2nd and 3rd places overall respectively with Wild haggis having to settle for 4th.
Race two and the attempt to use the kite at the start for a very tight leg to the first mark saw Mojito cross last over the start line but with the shifty northerly there were many opportunities for gains and Mojito and David Lean's J99 - Jackpot made significant ground in the shifts. Mojito managed to take the lead and finish 1st with Jackpot 2nd and Darling 3rd. The close competition between IRC 2 boats Honey Bee and Harley Quinn continued, taking 1st and 2nd in class, and Keith Greenwood's First 31.7 - Hullabaloo taking 3rd in IRC 2.
Race three, and Steve Williams's XP33 - Darling and Paul Sutton's J109 - Jaydreamer got off to good starts. Meanwhile, Wild haggis had a few kite issues during the race to push them down to an 8th place behind Hullabaloo.
The race saw some incredibly close racing across the whole fleet with less than a minute separating the top six boats!! Darling's great start enabled them to secure 1st overall, Mojito gained another 2nd, closely followed by Jaydreamer, Jackpot, Harley Quinn and Honey Bee.
Mojito have built up a big lead in the series so far but we're only half way through the autumn series so far with more discards to apply, so there is plenty of time for the standings to change. Phil Jackson's Sea Minks leads the NHC cruiser class but with many discards to apply there is plenty of opportunity for more cruisers to join the series and capitalise on the winter series to take the lead.
The next weekend of the Autumn series is 23rd & 24th October. Full results and more information is available at pwllhelisailingclub.co.uk/pscv3/index.php/club-sections/racing