Thursday Fed Week Day 4 - 12 August 2010
The best day of the week so far with sunshine and a good 12-15 knot Nor-Westerly which held for the day as forecast. A different course, ‘H’, was allocated for Series 1 and 2, giving all classes long windward legs across the harbour.
The Series 1 beat took the boats from Snowhill over to Rythe East, with exhilarating 3 sail reach down to the gybe mark at Sandy, just off the HISC clubhouse, providing spectators at the club with a real entertainment especially the foiling Moths. A 10 degree shift from 305 to 325 just after the first start meant boats were able to lee bow the incoming tide and those that did so rather than tack over to the Thorney shore made tremendous gains. However, this took a lot of boats directly through the Series 2 start line and sadly many boats contravened SI 8.5 or SI 7.5 and will receive a 20% scoring penalty. Mike Lennon in his foiling Moth exceeded the previous days astonishing time by completing 4 laps of the course in 1 hour 13 minutes!
The Int 14 of the Partingtons revelled in the conditions and were clear winners in the Fast Asymmetrics. The Medium Asymmetrics were given the full 3 rounds today and the leading 29ers of Phil Walker crewed by John Mather, and Callum Ellis crewed by Will Harris finished well ahead and actually lapped quite a few boats in their fleet. The leading RS400’s were a long way ahead of the pack, so much so that they missed the shorten course and did an extra lap. Matt Johnston and Gael Pawson recorded their third win of the week.
In the Fast Handicap the Fireball of Keith Walker and Rhys Pickett at last showed their true colours to be first boat home and first on corrected time. Mike Tong and team returned to the fold in the Elites and won from Team Lamb by a good distance. All is set between these two for a grand finale in tomorrow’s final race. The Flying Fiteens saw a different winner on the water with Peter Bannister and Nick Willis showing Roger and Barbara Palmer the way round, although it will not affect Palmer’s overall win.The Finn’s were once again led by Simon Pettit but this time Simon held onto his lead to record the Finn’s fourth different winner in 4 days.
On Series 2 the RS 200s, the largest fleet in the regatta were started under a black flag, but still suffered two general recalls before finally getting away. The Roberts team will need to perform on Friday to secure an overall win. In the Lasers Colin Smith already overall winner was squeezed out at the start only to re-round the committee boat and fight his way back to second place. In the RS Fevas Prescott and Eales’ 3rd place has made their lead unassailable. In the Medium Handicap a new 420 winner Sarah Alton and Katie Tompsett (Oxford SC) leaves this fleet with five overall potential winners.
On Series 3 the north-westerly wind made a long beat possible although limitations of the course area meant that the leg from the wing mark to the leeward mark was a fetch. The Toppers were recalled but were away successfully on their second attempt after the Optimists. 3 rounds were set for Toppers and Slow Handicap with 2 for the Optimists, but Toppers and Slow Handicap were both shortened to give races of approximately 50 minutes. Niall Houston (MRSC) won the first Topper race, James Eales (RLYC) won both Slow Handicap Races in his Tera and the first Optimist Race was won by Clark Rutter (ESC).
For the second race the start line was shortened and adjusted slightly for a sustained port hand shift, with 3 rounds set for the Toppers and 2 for Slow Handicap and Optimists. All fleets were despatched successfully with no individual recalls today. All classes were shortened by one leg, with the Toppers being won by Adam Osborne, (HISC) and Optimists by Jonathan Baddeley (HISC). - Robert MacDonald
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