East Kent Radio Sailing Club DF95 Spring Series Event 5 at Barton's Point Coastal Park
by Peter Jackson 4 May 2025 11:38 BST
1 May 2025
DF95 Spring Series at East Kent RSC - Windward Spreader during Event 5 © Rob Maunder
SE 2-4 knots was forecast but a consistent and increasing northerly 5-7 knots gave good racing on the hottest Mayday in history, well run by Jim and Debbie LaRoche.
Mike Brand was away and Peter Jackson had fatal rudder issues so the terrible twins Dave Adams and Adrian Tomlinson had things mostly to themselves taking all the wins bar one, victory in race 1 going to Peter Glover, from Adrian and Alan Hounsell.
Dave started badly, getting his discards out of the way early as Adrian then got 3 wins in a row. Rob Maunder claimed a 2nd place from Andrew Nichols, then Peter Glover plugged in three 2nd places in a row, two of them ahead of Dave, now recovering. Dave finally hit the front in race 5 and Peter Jackson finally hit the water and podium with a borrowed steering servo.
Dave then got his act together as the wind firmed up with a sequence of six straight wins each side of lunch. Now it was Adrian who struggled, using up his discards with a 5th 6th and 8th among one 2nd and two 3rd places. Alan Hounsell was being consistent scoring 2,3,4,4,4, and Rob Maunder scored 1 second 2nd place with Spencer Pope putting in an appearance on the bottom step of the podium. Peter Jackson then led 3 races but converted them to two 2nd places and an RTD with the replaced rudder servo getting lazy then dying.
Dave Adams kept his event lead over Adrian finishing 2,1,3,2,1. Adrian couldn't catch up even with 1,2,1,1,3. Alan Hounsell put in three more podiums to fend off Rob Maunder for 3rd place. Andrew Nichols 5th was his best result of the series, ahead of Peter Glover who missed the last 2 races. With a third rudder servo now fitted Peter slipped past Adrian at the last mark for 2nd to Dave in the last race but by then was down in 7th overall ahead of Spencer Pope. The closest result was for 9th between improving newbie Edward Coxon and Martin Hill, Ed taking it by 107 points to Martin's 109.
Overall Results: (top ten)
1. 358 Dave Adams
2. 30 Adrian Tomlinson
3. 380 Alan Hounsell
4. 571 Rob Maunder
5. 613 Andrew Nichols
6. 026 Peter Glover
7. 211 Peter Jackson
8. 32 Spencer Pope
9. 007 Edward Coxon
10. 156 Martin Hill