International 14 Prince of Wales Cup Week at Hayling Island SC - Day 1

by Mark Jardine and Angus Peel on 17 Jun 2016 Itchenor's Archie Massey and Harvey Hillary sit tied at the top of the leaderboard with Stu Bithell and Sam Pascoe from Castle Cove SC after the first two light wind races of the International Prince of Wales Cup Week held in Hayling Bay.

Joint leader Archie Massey said, 'We won the second race which was good. It was a solid, clean race and we called some lay-lines from a long way out which is always pleasing. In the first race we gybe set when we probably shouldn't have done which cost us a comfortable lead, and that was a bit annoying. We're happy with where we are overall - we thought Stuart and Sam might be a bit quicker and now I think maybe we've got an edge - we'll see!'

On the weather for the rest of the event Archie said, 'Its looking light - part of me wants to see Stu experience 14's in proper boat-breaking weather and see how he gets on!'

Crew Harvey Hillary said, 'It was the best we'd sailed for a long time. I thought we sailed really well through the chop today and that made the difference. That and spectacular lay-line calls from Archie which made my job easy!'

Sam Pascoe, sailing with Stuart Bithell, told us about their day, 'Very gusty and shifty out there and surprisingly choppy. I guess Hayling Bay is always a bit like that. We had up to 12 knots and down to five or six knots in the lulls - up and down. The rain clouds were causing chaos.'

Sam continued, 'We let Archie bang hard right in the second race which was what it was all about basically - getting into the tide that was coming out of the harbour. We won the first race but should have pushed the start harder in the second race. It's always a bit nerve-wracking getting these things off the start line - we went for the clear air and he went for the risky strategy of starting on the committee boat and it worked out for him.'

On his new helm for the event Sam commented, 'Very good - he definitely knows what he's doing - I can't give Glen (Truswell) the sack though as it's his boat!'

Stuart said of the day, 'It's our fourth day in the boat together so I wasn't expecting too much, but it seems to be going really well.'

On other boats in the fleet Sam said, 'The new Beiker 6 of Andy and Tom (Partington) seems to be going really well. They've made a good step up with that which is good to see. Chris Turner of Ovington Boats has done a bit of a redesign on it and it looks like a really nice boat now.'

Andy Partington said of his new boat, 'We launched it about three weeks ago. It's really a development of several boats over the last few years and we've been trying to refine them each time. This has lots of improved internal structures and is a lot stiffer - it's not necessarily the ultimate boat, but it's where we wanted to get to.'

On the key changes Andy said, 'We've moved the shrouds back which gives you a stiffer triangle for holding the mast and there's a different internal structure which enables us to use higher rig tension. Then there are a few internal layout changes which just make the boat that bit more comfortable to sail - nothing radical, just refinements based on sailing the previous generations of boats. We haven't really changed the under the water shape at all. It feels like a very refined and comfortable boat to sail - I'm not fighting it all the time.'

On his rig Andy said, 'We're using the same rig, sails and foils as our previous boat - we moved everything onto the new hull as we didn't want to change too much. That's all business as usual for us. We've been using Mike's Lennon) sails for the last couple of years and they're good.'

It's looking unlikely that the Prince of Wales Cup race (the one race National Championship for the International 14 class) will be held on Friday as very little wind is forecast.

Results after Day 1:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	Pts
1st	1519	Archie Massey	Harvey Hillary	Itchenor SC	2	1	3
2nd	155	Stuart Bithell	Sam Pascoe	Castle Cove SC	1	2	3
3rd	1559	Andrew Partington	Tom Partington	Hayling Island SC	4	3	7
4th	1555	Neale Jones	Ed FitzGerald	Itchenor SC	3	6	9
5th	1541	Roger Gilbert	Ben McGrane	Hayling Island SC	5	4	9
6th	1557	Katie Nurton	Nigel Ash	RYS	9	5	14
7th	1560	Dave Dobrijevic	Chris Thomas	HISC	6	9	15
8th	1543	Andrew Peake	Graeme Oliver	Wilsonian SC	8	7	15
9th	1548	Julian Pearson	Matt Reid	Orford SC	7	8	15
10th	1544	Ed Browne	Mark Tait	Hayling Island SC	12	10	22
11th	1523	Kimball Morrison	Jeremy Fowke	Itchenor SC	14	11	25
12th	1527	Philip McDanell	Luke Boughton	Itchenor SC	11	16	27
13th	1532	Adrian Williams	Andy Brown	Hayling Island SC	15	13	28
14th	1529	Robin Pascal	Martin Pascal	Itchenor SC	17	15	32
15th	1531	Andrew Penman	Chris Watson	Itchenor SC	19	14	33
16th	1520	Paul Jenkins	Peter Jenkins	Eastbourne Sovereign SC	18	17	35
17th	1552	Andy Shaw	Adam Lees	Itchenor SC	10	DNC	37
18th	1546	Charles Duchesne	Tom Bracewell	Itchenor SC	DNC	12	39
19th	1517	George Yeoman	Jack Yoeman	Itchenor SC	13	DNC	40
20th	1488	Dominic van Essen	Simona Saccani	Itchenor SC	22	19	41
21st	1499	Christina Bassadone	Damian Ash	Itchenor SC	16	DNC	43
22nd	1550	Tom Watkins	Isabella Watkins	Itchenor SC	DNC	18	45
23rd	1554	Peter Crockford	Jack Elsby-Hartman	Restronguet SC	20	DNC	47
24th	1512	Steve Fisher	Andy Ramus	Hayling Island SC	21	DNF	48
25th	15	Andy FitzGerald	Richard Dobson	Itchenor SC	DNC	DNC	54
25th	1484	Alasdair Cattanach	Paul Anderson	Prestwick SC	DNC	DNC	54