A close battle for the Shustoke Gauntlet 2015

SG fleet general - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

SG fleet - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

The first of the 12 classes away in the cold, clear morning were the local Mirrors of Fred Briscoe, Stuart Sutcliffe and Tony Mason, followed shortly by the lone Topper of Graham Clarke. The forecast had been less than completely accurate however and with the gusts came thirty degree shifts which gave the Mirrors a heavily port biased start and a subsidised route to the windward mark.

SG Mirrors - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

SG first overall - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

With the wind cycling over the 23 minute start sequence, each fleet had to make its own decision on starting. The largest single fleet of 12 Solos and Streakers started on starboard and were followed by the GP14s, Comet Trios, Enterprise, N12, RS200 and the Scorpion of Peter Gray/Richard Pepperdine. Merlins and Phantoms completed the start sequence.

SG fleet - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

With the wind blowing down the length of the lake, reaches were at a premium and the faster boats struggled to do justice to their handicaps. By the end of the first lap, gaps had been closed but few positions traded. In the Solo fleet, Shustoke’s Stuart Hydon and Nick Fisher from Chew Valley had established themselves as front runners with the GP14 of Steve and Jack Bennett putting a lone spinnaker amongst the single handers. The Scorpion had also joined the back of the Solo fleet.

SG second overall - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

Even after an hour, the Mirrors were still in a race of their own with only the two leading Solos and the GP showing any signs of threatening them. The Phantom of Jim Hopton was trading places with the lead Merlin of Rob Kennaugh and Abi Spurr until a mark rounding incident ended his race. The Merlins were still mid fleet at this stage and unlikely to be ever seeing the front runners.

Fred Briscoe’s blue Mirror remained the lead boat until the end with the Solo of Stuart Hydon taking second place from Stuart Sutcliffe by only millimetres. The Gray/Pepperdine Scorpion finished in fourth having relegated the Bennett GP to fifth.

SG third overall - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

After a Shustoke lunch, the competitors ventured out onto a course now adjusted by Race Officer Chris Biglin for the new predominant wind direction and with a significantly increased reaching element. This time it was the traditional wooden Mirror of Stuart Sutcliffe that led the red sails and the fleet round the first two laps. Cole Briscoe was the lead Solo at this stage but had been no match for the Bennett GP which was already chasing down the Mirrors. The Scorpion had already overhauled all but the leading two Solos and was now followed by the bright yellow Comet Trio of Adrian and Tracey Padro, and the Streaker of David Turtle from Shotwick Lake.

The closing stages proved very interesting for the scorers. The Scorpion had despatched all before it with time to spare and was leading a clear threesome of the Bennetts and the Hydon Solo, which had eventually got the better of Briscoe. With an increasing wind and the faster boats thoroughly intertwined with the mid fleet, positions were changing every few seconds and, as the finish time approached, things were further complicated by most of the fleet being on a beat. The tracking provided by Sailracer proved invaluable in confirming the final positions.

The RS200 of Nigel Pepperdine/Rachel Rhodes emerged as the best of the rest in fourth, ahead of the Hopton Phantom and the lead Mirror of Sutcliffe.

SG top three boats - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

The win in race two gave the Gauntlet trophy to Pete Gray and Richard Pepperdine in the Scorpion, pushing Stuart Hydon on equal points down to second. Father and son team, Steve and Jack Bennett were unchallenged for third. With two races in the series, equal points scores were common and fourth and fifth places shared 16 points. The Mirror of Stuart Sutcliffe took fourth overall by virtue of his third place in the last race, leaving fifth to the Enterprise of Neil Barrett and Sophie Jones of Wanlip who had earned the place with consistent results.

If you would like to re-run the race on the Sailracer tracker you can find it via this link. The system requires Silverlight to be installed on your computer and it will try to load automatically if you don’t already have it installed, you may need to confirm the install when the window appears.

(When following the link you may find that a blank square appears on the screen, this can be closed by clicking the small square in the top right corner. When viewing the tracks you should remember that the GPS accuracy is about 3m.)

Trackers gave data for the Musto Speed Wall with both actual and handicap-corrected top speeds. Race two saw the fastest speeds.

Full results

SG SailRacer Tracking_Musto Speedwall - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer

SG Peter Maidment commodore Richard Pepperdine and Pete Gray - Shustoke Gauntlet 2015 © Brenda Hoult, SailRacer