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Sail-World.com : Burlton blasts to win at SB3 Solent Grand Prix
Burlton blasts to win at SB3 Solent Grand Prix
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Craig Burlton’s Gill Race Team topped the SB3 fleet at the second round of the Solent Grand Prix series sponsored by Wight Vodka held at Seaview YC on the Isle of Wight. Burlton completed his victory in the penultimate race, holding off the challenges of Geoff Carveth, Mark Rushall and Jerry Hill to take the win.
The fleet of 35 SB3’s arrived in Seaview on the Isle of Wight over the weekend of 6 / 7 June for the second leg of the 2009 Solent Grand Prix series sponsored by Wight Vodka.
For most it was a fairly long haul down the Solent from Hamble on the Friday evening or the Saturday morning, either by rib or under sail, the trip being made harder by 20 knots on the nose. The two Race Ahead teams from South Africa took the opportunity for over three hours of two boat tuning and didn’t arrive until 10.30pm but most got there earlier and were happy to be tucked up in the hospitable Seaview YC bar for the evening.
Saturday dawned with 15 to 20 knots from the East and a decent swell which made rigging up on the moorings fairly uncomfortable, but with the exception of a couple of late arrivals from Hamble the fleet set off for the 4 races scheduled for the day.
Race 1 got underway after the customary general recall and with the wind building the fleet set about the 2 lap windward leeward course, with the swell there was a premium on keeping the boats driving upwind before the fleet got the opportunity to get some proper surfing in downwind in some of the best conditions of the season so far. Craig Burton’s Gill Race Team took the bullet after being chased hard all the way by Sarah Allen on Sailboats spares with Jerry Hill reunited with the other 2 of the original 3 sad old blokes coming in third.
Race 2 and the breeze had moderated slightly as Mark Rushall and his crew stepped it up a gear and showed solid upwind pace to lead into the windward mark, hotly pursued by Geoff Carveth in Cre8tivity with Gill Race Team and Dave Hudson and crew on City of Cape Town not too far behind.
A fairly sizeable overstand on the second windward mark layline by the chasing pack gave Rushall and Carveth a bit of space for the final run, with Carveth looking to pace around the outside of Rushall, however Rushall managed to hold him off as well as a late surge from Burlton to secure the win.
Race 3 and it was Gill race team back to the front again after some rapid downwind sailing on the first lap, Andy Oddie and the team on In Your Pocket showed some solid pace up the second beat and with Rushall still on the charge these 3 boats rounded the final windward mark within a few lengths of each other. Burlton and crew managed to hold on down the run, although Rushall closed to almost make things difficult on the last mark, shortly followed by Andy Oddie and crew in third.
The wind increased for the final race of the day, and with the change in tidal flow the waves also became a little more fierce, making the downwind legs even more spectacular, in fact a little too spectacular for Craig and Co, with a demonstration spin out at the end of the first run.
Rushall paid little notice to all the entertainment to sail off for his second win of the day. Taariq Jacobs, over from South Africa with his young crew under Dave Hudson’s Race Ahead programme, demonstrated his asymmetric experience from 29ers to send it downwind at a blistering pace to secure second place, with Gill race team recovering to take 3rd.
Overnight it was Rushall leading by one point from Burlton with current World Champion Carveth not too far behind in 3rd, and current National Champion Jerry Hill in 4th. A BBQ was put on by the Seaview YC and with the return of Dr C to the bar with the indomitable Lovers aiming to down a drink or two it almost looked like Stuart 'The Beard' would have competition for the evening. However Dr C soon got sidelined swapping tales with Dr. Tommo and the natural order of things was returned.
After a pretty ferocious night for the boats on the moorings with one boat coming a cropper on the nearby shore, the wind eased and swung to a tricky offshore direction but still with enough pressure to get racing.
Following a postponement to allow the 30 degree wind shifts to settle down to some relatively more acceptable 15 degree shifts the fleet got underway. With such significant changes in direction and sizeable changes in pressure across the course the key was in staying in the middle of the course and working the shifts as hard as possible.
Coming to the top of the first beat it was the three boats of Burlton, Carveth and Chris Jennings in Selden Masts who seemed to have managed this best; into the final approach to the mark the lead changed a few times before Gill Race team managed to just get under Carveth and shoot the mark, allowing them to gain some separation down the run.
Despite the shifts in direction and pressure Burlton managed to hold off the advances of Carveth, Jennings and Hudson to take the win. With Rushall finishing seventh this meant that Gill Race team took the event with a race to spare and managed to head off early for the trip back to Hamble.
The final race saw a few boats becoming victims of the black flag, with Jerry Hill and his sad old blokes leading for most of the race until local Seaview legends the Simonds brothers on Doolalli stormed through on the final run to take the gun with Andy Oddie, having showed pace all weekend, following Hill home in third.
SB3 Solent Grand Prix No. 2 - Seaview YC
1st 3042 Gill Race Team Craig Burlton 1.0 3.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 (36.0 DNC) 45.0 9.0
2nd 3467 www.rushall.net Mark Rushall 5.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 7.0 (36.0 BFD) 52.0 16.0
3rd 3053 Cre8tivity Geoff Carveth 4.0 2.0 4.0 7.0 2.0 (8.0) 27.0 19.0
4th 3465 3 Sad Old Blokes Jerry Hill 3.0 (8.0) 5.0 4.0 6.0 2.0 28.0 20.0
5th 3451 City of Capetown Roger Hudson 11.0 4.0 6.0 6.0 4.0 (36.0 BFD) 67.0 31.0
6th 3462 In Your Pocket Andrew Oddie (36.0 DNF) 6.0 3.0 8.0 12.0 3.0 68.0 32.0
7th 3575 sailboatspares.com Sarah Allan 2.0 10.0 8.0 5.0 13.0 (36.0 BFD) 74.0 38.0
8th 3469 Spirit of Capetown Taariq Jacobs 8.0 5.0 (36.0 BFD) 2.0 8.0 17.0 76.0 40.0
9th 3031 Team McLaren David Ellis 6.0 (13.0) 12.0 12.0 10.0 6.0 59.0 46.0
10th 3027 Darling Associates Chris Darling 9.0 11.0 9.0 (36.0 BFD) 14.0 4.0 83.0 47.0
11th 3209 Trunk Monkey Joe Burnie 10.0 (20.0) 15.0 10.0 15.0 5.0 75.0 55.0
12th 3517 Doolalli Colin Simonds 13.0 17.0 17.0 (36.0 BFD) 16.0 1.0 100.0 64.0
13th 3060 Finitor 7 Stuart Reed 12.0 (22.0) 13.0 11.0 18.0 18.0 94.0 72.0
14th 3029 3-Some Niall Peelo 14.0 7.0 21.0 14.0 17.0 (36.0 BFD) 109.0 73.0
15th 3166 Sacre Bleu Giles Packham 17.0 18.0 14.0 16.0 (30.0) 9.0 104.0 74.0
16th 3081 Flamin Galah Jonno Brech 7.0 14.0 10.0 9.0 (36.0 DNC) 36.0 DNC 112.0 76.0
17th 3104 Retail Therapy Charles Sheppard (29.0) 9.0 19.0 15.0 19.0 14.0 105.0 76.0
18th 3032 Rumbleflurg David Cummins 15.0 19.0 18.0 (36.0 DNF) 9.0 15.0 112.0 76.0
19th 3183 Outkri Kit Glover (36.0 DNC) 36.0 DNC 11.0 13.0 5.0 12.0 113.0 77.0
20th 3096 Red Kite Roger Harford 21.0 16.0 (25.0) 17.0 22.0 10.0 111.0 86.0
21st 3110 Flippet Jonathan Blanshard 22.0 21.0 (23.0) 18.0 20.0 7.0 111.0 88.0
22nd 3037 Giraffe Simon Perry 18.0 12.0 24.0 (36.0 BFD) 24.0 13.0 127.0 91.0
23rd 3177 Hot Pants Michael Wood 20.0 (30.0) 20.0 19.0 27.0 16.0 132.0 102.0
24th 3082 Badger Racing Paul Lovejoy (36.0 DNC) 15.0 7.0 36.0 BFD 11.0 36.0 BFD 141.0 105.0
25th 3012 Barbarian Ben Sturges 27.0 (29.0) 28.0 21.0 23.0 11.0 139.0 110.0
26th 3144 Synchro Kev O'Brien 24.0 26.0 (30.0) 20.0 29.0 21.0 150.0 120.0
27th 3311 Selden Mast Chris Jennings 16.0 (36.0 DNF) 36.0 DNC 36.0 DNC 3.0 36.0 BFD 163.0 127.0
28th 3305 Bucephalus Alex Tilley/Will Evans 25.0 23.0 22.0 22.0 (36.0 DNC) 36.0 DNC 164.0 128.0
29th 3108 epitomy.com TA Vernon 19.0 24.0 16.0 (36.0 DNF) 36.0 DNC 36.0 DNC 167.0 131.0
30th 3577 Headless Chicken Lucy Wood/Iain Chidgey (36.0 DNF) 25.0 27.0 36.0 DNF 25.0
by Adam Heeley
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7:35 PM Tue 9 Jun 2009 GMT
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