P&B Solo Southern Series Open at Dell Quay Sailing Club

P&B Solo Southern Series Open at Dell Quay Sailing Club © Jack de la Hunty

P&B Solo Southern Series Open at Dell Quay Sailing Club © Jack de la Hunty

Leading into the event a super light forecast gave the RO Peter Blow and Class Captain John Ellis a couple of sleepless nights, some procrastinating and various Plan B's but in the end they took the gamble to stick with it. It paid off beautifully with the sea breeze kicking in just as expected.

As the breeze slowly filled in with wall to wall sunshine the 15 DQSC boats supported by 11 visitors from all over the south coast ensured the 26 boats on the start line were in for a cracking days sailing! The planned three races did change to two but the RO and his team set a perfect triangle sausage course.

Race one was sailed in a light but fairly steady SW 5-7 knots. A small but dedicated number of sailors decided to bang the right hand corner sailing across the still flooding tide leaving most of the fleet to head up the left and centre track. It was a gamble led by Ian Barnet from Chichester YC, closely followed by a small number of others, who eventually found themselves at the windward mark a several yards ahead of the rest of the fleet - including much to his surprise, yours truly who having only recently bought a Solo with very 'testing' results so far couldn't believe his luck!

Dodging weed on the way down the two reaches meant there was a fair amount of 'wiggly' courses being sailed, lots of boards up and rudders getting 'air time' to check for weed. Throughout the fleet there were plenty of place changes providing some super tight racing - second lap saw a big change in tactics for some who had previously gone left with the right now being seen as more favourable as now the tide was on the turn....

By the end of the first race the breeze had built a little more for some helms now hiking consistently - A great first race in the bag with the win going to Barnet from CYC.

Second start was now in full ebbing tide with the racetrack in the fastest flowing tide.... Resulting in upwards of 10 helms being over the line. After a general recall, the start saw the tide again claim a small number of helms for a duck back over the line.

From here on in we had pure champagne sailing with 10-14 knots SW for 2.5 laps of the track. Barnet, who was one of the offenders at the start was already making rapid gains. Pound yet again found himself well out of his comfort zone towards the front of the fleet and was leading home boat for most of the race, until Roger Puttock who was also over the line and recrossed last finally reeled in most of the fleet to claim first place for home boat. A stupid error by Pound then let Simon Verral from DQSC through with less than 100 yds to go, that result also changed things on the final standings later...... Barnet took the win followed by two more superbly consistent sails by Fraser Hayden from Papercourt and Mike Murley-Hughes from Hayling Island who claimed second and third respectively in both races!

P&B Solo Southern Series Open at Dell Quay Sailing Club - photo © John Rogerson

Super tight racing elsewhere in the fleet saw three helms tie for third place with Verral and Puttock (DQSC) and Richard Ball from Chipstead all claiming 12 points - Verral was given official third place claiming the Mike Shaw trophy for the first DQSC boat home and also claimed the 'Master' Win The rest of the fleet had some great racing with place changes a plenty in pretty much ideal conditions. It was fantastic for us to host our visitors from Chichester YC, Hayling Island SC, Chipstead SC, Littleton SC, Papercourt SC and the RYA - thank you all for coming, your support is greatly appreciated and we hope you had a great day!

A massive shout must go to the team of helpers who provided their time to make this superb event run as smoothly as it did - thank you all - RO and his team, John Ellis our CC and event organiser, the safety boat crews, the beach team who enabled super slick exit and return to the beach, the galley and bar and to anyone else who helped - a big thank you from all of us on the water. Be sure to check out our social channels for photos and videos over the coming days! (just search Dell Quay Sailing Club on Insta and FB) you can also find out more about our club here, www.dellquaysc.co.uk See you all next year!

Overall Results: