ILCA UK Rooster National Open at Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy - ILCA 7

Rooster ILCA 7 National Open at Weymouth © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

Leading into the weekend, the forecast was clearly unstable. Saturday showed light north/easterly, with breeze bending over the Bill on the right hand side. The committee boat stationed in the centre of the harbour and mark 1 towards the harbour wall.

The first race kicked off smoothly until the first downwind where the breeze shut off. So first attempt abandoned and worried faces across the fleet, knowing the difficult forecast ahead. Luckily the wind shifted to the right and filled in relatively quickly.

For the next attempt Finley Dickenson, Micky Beckett and Hamish Collingridge got away cleanly and lead around the top mark, although in this light breeze it was difficult to hold ground on the downwind. This saw a jumble of place changes leading into the bottom mark and a large fleet compression. Finley and Mickey held their places in first and second, closely followed by Sam in third.

The second race was quickly fired off to keep up to the 4 races planned, due to the weak Sunday forecast. This saw a strong start to Kai Wolgram and Finley Dickenson, splitting the course and meeting at the top mark, closely followed by the chasing pack stacked up on the starboard lay line, causing traffic around the first mark. The leading 10 used this moment to breath, and extend. This meant Finley Dickenson took the win, followed closely by Kai and Micky.

After another quick turnaround, race 3 saw a dominating right shift and breeze, rewarding the early port tackers and punishing the sailors who held their lane out to the left-hand side. This created a mixed leading group lead by Sam Whaley and Finley Dickenson, with master sailor Simon Odling sitting in 4th by mark 2, who was rewarded for keeping his head out of the boat. After a race of further snakes and ladders, Sam and Finley kept their positions in first and second and Archie Munro-Price joined them on the podium.

After this race, sailors were unsure of another race, but the race committee wanted to go for the 4th. At 2 minutes to go the wind dropped significantly and drew left. Sailors tried to sail to the pin, but the sailors who were staying aware had planned for this. This lead to an unusual start of tacking onto port at go! Pressure was clearly filling in ahead and it was a fight among sailors to get there first. After the wind stabilised, the rich got richer. The winning order ended as Kai, Sam and Micky in that order.

Day 2 saw some concerned faces ahead of the unstable, forecasted wind directions. This led to 2 hours of indefinite AP. At the release of the sailors, the wind dropped to nothing. This went on for 30 minutes until the classic south westerly formed. The race committee raced to lay marks and set the course and we swiftly went into race 5. The race saw slight pin bias and a left hand favoured course.

After battles at the pin, the ones who could hold their lane or tack crossed took the lead. After a set of snakes and ladders on the first downwind, the gate was favoured go right, making easy gains and losses for sailors across the board. At the end of the race Alistair Brown, Kai Wolgram and James Percival-Cooke took the podium positions.

For the final race the wind was surprisingly in good shape, holding 4-7 knots across the course. There was a general recall after a left shift and a high pin. Racing was quickly restored and sailors were sent off. Most sides of the course were viable, but you had to win in the pod of boats around you. Sailors came cramming in around mark 1 and 2, making for a critical downwind.

This mainly came for searching for pressure and sailing out right due to the left shifted wind at that time. For the second beat, the top left close to the marina historically comes in left shifted with breeze. However, pressure from the top right prevailed, sending big changes across the fleet heading into mark 2. The order remained leaving James Percival-Cooke, James Foster and Archie Munro-Price in the top three.

Main podium - Rooster ILCA 7 National Open at Weymouth - photo © Jon Emmett

Overall, the race committee did a fantastic job to make a full set of racing off a difficult forecast. Well done to Sam Whaley for winning, followed by Kai Wolgram and Micky Beckett. They showed consistency across the light winds was key to success across the 6 race, 1 discard series. 1st U21 place went to Freddie Sunderland and 1st U19 to Freddie MacLaverty.

Event Title Sponsor: Rooster

Supported by: Noble Marine, Sailingfast, Ovington Boats & TracTrac UK

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Overall Results: