Bell Lawrie Scottish Series - Day 2

by Sue McKichan on 28 May 2006 With more breeze forecast for day two of the Bell Lawrie Scottish Series the fleets were looking forward to a thrilling day on the water, and Loch Fyne certainly delivered plenty of drama. For most of the crews, a testing day on the water was followed by a trip to the sailmakers with damaged sails the order of the day.

In the gusty conditions there were a number of retirements, with masts tumbling on the Impala 28 ‘Bambi’ and the J/92 ‘Nijinsky’.

Racing kicked off for big boats on the Graham Technology course in 16 knots of breeze and the sun came out to play in between some gusty showers which kept the crews on their toes. The breeze built through the day so by the time of the second race the gusts of up to 40 knots saw even the top boats struggling.

Leading the charge off the startline in Class 1 was Richard Loftus’ ‘Hotel California’, but last year’s winner, Tim Costello’s ‘Tiamat’ sailed a great race to finish first ahead of ‘Playing FTSE’ followed by yesterday’s winner, the new J133 ‘Jaru’. In the second race ‘Jaru’ made the best of the conditions to retain her overall lead ahead of ‘Playing FTSE’.

In Class 2 Anthony O’Leary and his crew on the Corby 35 ‘Antix’ had been looking forward to the breeze, although they were sailing fast, a man overboard incident cost them the lead in the first race which was won by another Corby design, Roy Dickson’s 36-foot ‘Rosie’.

However, in the second race O’Leary and his Irish crew finished two minutes ahead of ‘Rosie’, which lost valuable time when they broached on the final run. Peter O’Leary described the second race as ‘Full on,’ adding, ‘There are a few tired bodies after today.’

Chris Ferres’ J/35 ‘Bengal Magic’, helmed by 26-year-old David Taylor from Carrickfergus continued to dominate Class 3. The young amateur crew are used to smaller, livelier boats, their starts were spot on and their slick crew work was an impressive sight. Crewmember Dillan Lyness explained. ‘Most of the people are dinghy sailors. We’ve been sailing together now for a while and we’ve just got the boat up and trucking. We had to hike hard today — we could have done with extra crew on the rail, but so could everyone!’

On the Talisker fleet, all eyes were on the Sonatas, where the Series winner from 1993 Steve Goacher was dominating with ‘Eric the Boat’. Goacher won the first two races of the day, but was denied a clean score by ‘Scruples’.

In the 1720s Ruairidh Scott’s ‘King Quick’ was flying and took the first two races of the day, however a damaged spinnaker meant he had to settle for second in the third race, which leaves him topping the class by four points from ‘Buddy White’.

The 24-boat Sportsboat class is shaping up into a battle between the Sonar ‘Carpe Diem’ and Hamish MacKay’s J/80 ‘Jazolino’. MacKay had the better day, posting two firsts and a third, while ‘Carpe Diem’ suffered in the afternoon’s bigger breeze.

Overall Results after Day Two, Saturday 27 May:

IRC Class 1:
1 Jaru (G Hutchinson) 5 points,
2 Playing FTSE (J Anderson) 6,
3 Tiamat (T Costello) 9,

IRC Class 2:
1 Antix (A O’Leary) 4,
2 Rosie (R Dickson) 5,
3 Bateleur 97 (C Bonar) 12,

IRC Class 3:
1 Bengal Magic (Moorehead/Ferres) 3,
2 Cactus Jack (N Spurr) 9,
3 Equinox (E McDonald) 12,

IRC Class 4:
1 Thirty Something (Hall/McDonnell) 6,
2 Xebec (T Giles) 12,
3 RoBo (J Blair) 12,

CYCA Class 6:
1 Exile (G Ratter) 7,
2 Blyth Spirit (M Blyth) 8,
3 Guilty (D Clow) 10,

CYCA Class 7:
1 Tangle O’the Isles (J Gough) 6,
2 Shoki (J McDougall) 9,
3 Cara of Kip (G Goudie) 9,

CYCA Class 8:
1 Meteor (L Jacobsen) 3,
2 Hopscotch (R Brownlie) 7,
3 Kudos (D Syme) 14,

CYCA Restricted Sail Class 9:
1 Hansebacker (P Watson) 4,
2 Zara of Doon (Wilson/Lyall) 5,
3 Kacana (L Johnston) 12,

CYCA Restricted Sail Class 10:
1 Mersonary (R Angus) 5,
2 Swedish Lady (B Curran) 7,
3 Mallie (McClelland/McFadyen) 13,

Sigma 33 Class:
1 Carmen (P Scutt) 9,
2 White Mischief (T Goodbody) 10,
3 Sigmatic (D McLaren) 12,

Impala 28 Class:
1 Hooch (M Caldwell) 8,
2 Orrkid (A Orr) 11,
3 Bambi (P Doig) 19,

National Sonata Class:
1 Eric the Boat (S Goacher) 5,
2 Pied Piper (A Harper) 14,
3 So (McClure/Stewart) 20,

Cork 1720 Sportsboat:
1 King Quick (G Scott) 6,
2 Buddy White (C Frize) 10,
3 Lemon (C Galavan) 17,

Sportsboat Class:
1 Jazolino (H MacKay) 8,
2 Carpe Diem (Patience/Ross) 14,
3 Prelude (Manuel/Bourke) 28