Flying Fifteen Hong Kong Nationals - Light winds on Day 2

by Lindsay Lyons on 30 Oct 2013 For Day 2 of the Flying Fifteen Hong Kong Nationals, a slightly lighter day on the water today, with around 10 to 14kts of breeze from 075°, and Race Officer Jerry Rollin chose the same area of the Lamma patch as Tuesday to set up the committee boat.

Race three started with a general recall as a clutch of ‘Fifteens broke the middle of the line, making it impossible to identify the transgressors. Rollin black flagged the restart, but even with that deterrent, five boats mis-timed their approach and were scored BFD for the race – Pharos Financial Group, Changing Lanes, Jaffa, Noisy Forefather and Tomffoolery.

The remaining boats continued around the course, consisting of sausage-triangle-sausage with a leeward finish, with defending World Champions Graham Vials / Chris Turner coming in first ahead of Steve Goacher/ Phil Evans, Grant Alderson / Dean McAullay and the Jerwoods in fourth.

With the pin end repositioned, the line was opened for the second start, however just ahead of the one-minute signal, the AP was raised to allow a wind shift to settle. When the race finally got underway, Ashley Smith and Adam Kingston clearly fancied the pin end – so much so that with the fleet bearing down on them, they brushed the pin boat, with Sam Chan forcing his way in and causing further contact with both Pharos Financial Group and Tomffoolery.

Completing their turns dented the race hopes of all three, but Smith and Kingston managed to recover to eighth. The eventual winners of race four, Greg Wells and Andrew Jameson on Betty managed to avoid a pile up at the windward mark involving half the fleet.

Speaking after the race, Wells said 'first we thought the left looked good … then the right. We couldn’t decide which way to go so we sort of just went up the middle – we thought we’d get there about 12th, but arrived in fourth surrounded by rock stars!' Betty went on to pull back the other boats one by one to cross the finish line in first place, with Nick and Janet Jerwood in second and David Tabb / Chewey Sherrell in third.

After four races, the Jerwoods are sitting in first place on 10 points, with Graham Vials in second on 13 and Steve Goacher in third on 17. The regatta finishes tomorrow with the final two races, then there follows a lay day before the start of the ‘main event’, the 19th International Flying Fifteen World Championship on Saturday 2nd November.



























































































































































































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