J/105s Garmin Hamble Winter Series

by Kirsty Apthorp on 18 Nov 2006 On Sunday 12 November ten J/105s set out for to the Solent to participate in the fifth race of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series. With gales over the previous two days, Sunday morning dawned with a gentle 10 knots.

Some boats in the earlier classes had found it difficult to lay the pin-end so the J/105 fleet was more cautious. J-Dream (David & Kirsty Apthorp) had a good start right on the line and went left in search of breeze, whilst the rest of the fleet went right to keep out of the tide. Going right paid and at the windward mark Fay-J (Paul Griffiths) led from diablo-J (Nick Martin) closely followed by Voador (Simon Curwen).

Downwind the boats closed together again. Upwind Voador and J-Dream went right together, whilst Fay-J went further right and extended their lead. Voador judged the final windward mark with true class, ie. perfectly whilst J-Dream underestimated the increasing tide as did the majority of the fleet. An excellent downwind leg and final beat to the finish saw J-Dream close the gap on Voador, but not by enough! With the wind increasing to 15 knots the J/105s were enjoying the long downwind runs, overtaking the tailenders of the J/109 Class.

By the second upwind leg, half of the fleet had been caught by the Class 3 boats and were unable to claim clean wind and their own battles commenced. BoJangles (Derek Copeman) battled with Just Aquaholix (Siobhan Hayes, Joanna Finn, Debbie Hall) on the first run and retained their lead, but on the second run Just Aquaholix had the edge. The battle then continued with Wild Child (Jason Rolf) and Journeymaker 5 (Chris Jones), with BoJangles beating Wild Child across the line by only 40 seconds.

With more tide than most anticipated and less wind than forecast the fleet had a demanding race, which they all thoroughly enjoyed!

Results:

1st Voador – Simon Curwen
2nd J-Dream – David & Kirsty Apthorp
3rd Fay-J – Paul Griffiths