P&B Solo class South Series at Spinnaker Sailing Club

In broken sunshine on 16 May, Spinnaker hosted the third round of the P&B Solo South Series. A record 28 boats entered with 13 visitors. A gradient South West wind should have given an unusually consistent wind.

In a light breeze, the first race set off with a pathfinder safety boat. It wasn't required as local wiz and current Thames Valley champion, Ian Matthews raced to a lead from, the start gun, followed by another local, Paul Gray - positions they held to the end. The places behind changed frequently with local Class Captain, Keith McQuillin being the one lucky enough to be in third when the music stopped.

The steady SW abandoned the fleet for Race 2, swinging for no explicable reason to Westerly.

A re-jigged course for R2 saw Keith get away on a port flyer. Caught (quite literally) by a chasing pack led by Nigel Bird (RYA), it was Ian who again found his way to the front followed in by Nigel and Simon Lomas-Clarke (FPSC).

After lunch, the wind was still arguing between SW and W. With the course marks swung to keep the beats, the spacer mark after the first windward leg was in line with the leeward mark. Fraser Hayden (Papercourt) led the fleet from local sailor Ben Schooling and Simon Derham (Littleton). Ian was again wrestling his way though the fleet and was close on to Ben when he missed the spacer mark. Clearly, the pathfinder was needed more than we realised! He did the same the following lap and ended the race in 9th.

With Ian's third race mishaps, four sailors could still take the win away from Ian in the last race. After two false starts, the black flag made an appearance. That made everyone behave, but it was none of the contenders who aced the start but Richard Ball of Chipsted. But it was the familiar face of Ian who settled in behind Richard. These two led the fleet round with John Reed (Bough Beech) comfortably in third.

So, Ian retained the title with 4 pts followed as 2025 by Keith. Fraser was third. Sailors from six different clubs filled the top 10 showing the health of the class across the South and Thames Valley. Round four of the P&B South is at Dell Quay on 30 May.

Overall Results: