Royal Southern Yacht Club – Action from the May 2010 Regatta

by Royal Southern Yacht Club on 26 May 2010 Royal Southern Yacht Club at Hamble last weekend held the first of the season’s monthly regattas. Often the first weekend in a series tends to be a slightly lower key event but that can never be true at this club’s regattas.

Within the main racing there were two added attractions. The First 40.7s were back for the third year to hold their National Championships and the weekend was the final part of the trials for the Commodore’s Cup boats.

With low tide around mid-day and the light winds predominantly from the Southeast, moving towards the East on both days the options for course laying for PRO Peter Bateson were slightly limited. From a starting line in the vicinity of the ‘Flying Fish’ buoy the keelboats were set courses that used the southern channel between the Brambles, Ryde Middle and Peel Banks.

Apart from a short postponement before racing started on Saturday and a delay between races on Sunday there was always enough breeze to overcome the weak tidal flow and keep boats moving.

IRC 1 and Commodore’s Cup Class

This weekend’s racing marked the third and final trial for the Commodore’s Cup selection. Jim McGregor helming his Elan 410 ‘Premier Flair’ had convincingly won the first trial on the last weekend of the Spring Series.

David Aisher on his J-109 ‘Yeoman of Hamble’ had won his class in the offshore trial, the De Guingand Bowl, and ‘La Reponse’ (Andrew McIrvine and Peter Morton) had been the leading triallist in IRC 1 in the same race. For these three, plus the other triallists it could be a make or break weekend.

Michael Bartholemew’s King 40 ‘Tokoloshe’ has been a prominent feature on the Solent scene for a couple of seasons and this weekend he took line honours in all four races. However Peter Morton helming ‘La Response’ (First 40) was close enough behind to take the second and third races on handicap. With no discards allowed ‘Tokoloshe’ and ‘La Reponse’ finished equal on six points each, but the overall title went to ‘Tokoloshe’ by winning the last race.

Elsewhere in the class ‘No Chance’ (Chris & Hannah Neve), ‘Premier Flair’ (Jim McGregor) and ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ (Brian Wilkinson) often seemed to be tied together by a piece of elastic. The wide range of handicaps seemed irrelevant as boats often finished several to the minute.

First 40.7 Class
Although often sailed as a one-design class, this weekend the boats raced off their IRC ratings and even though the overall difference was only a handful of points the racing was so close that this correction did have an effect on the final results. Paul Jenkins started well taking the first race by a couple of boat’s lengths from Peter Robson helming ‘Playing Around’, sponsored by Stewarts Law.

Line honours on Saturday afternoon went to Andrew Iyer’s ‘Portia’ but he dropped to second behind Paul McNamara’s ‘Incognito’. Behind these two ‘Playing Around’ and ‘Addiction’ couldn’t be separated and shared third and fourth place points. This represented a good recovery by ‘Playing Around’ who had been forced out at the leeward mark and had dropped to the back of the pack with only a few legs to go to the finish.

On Sunday morning the class were sent on a course that took them down to the ‘Royal Thames’ buoy off the Lepe shore. Most of the fleet navigated safely but ‘Addiction’ took a slightly wrong course away from the mark, hit the bottom and had to retire from both the day’s races until the tide took her off. ‘Portia’ took the race by the largest winning margin so far. This set up the final race with three boats in with a chance of take the championship.

The East-going tide was pushing the boats towards the line and an individual recall was signalled. Both ‘Portia’ and ‘Interceptor’ from the ODM end of the line came back but flag ‘X’ still flew. ‘Below Zero’ (James Gair) had struggled all weekend to find downwind speed but they made a cracking start and arrived at the top mark alongside Guy Prest’s ‘Tarka’ and just ahead of the main fleet.

‘Incognito’ gybed early and found clear air to pull past these two and take a lead that she held to the finish. ‘Below Zero’ reached the finish to find that she had been the outstanding boat called OCS. With no discards allowed Paul McNamara took the title by 3.5 points from Peter Robson.

IRC 2 Class

The 13 strong class had, as its core, some J-109s and J-105s but there was also a mix of other designs all racing off a narrow handicap band and in the light conditions it was interesting to watch the racing develop. Good tactical awareness and boat handling often paid more dividends than waterline length.

In the first race Barbara Harmer’s A35 ‘Archibeau’ took both line and class honours and in the afternoon she took the gun but dropped to fourth place behind Richard Lewis’s level rated First 34.7 ‘Madraco’. In both of Saturday’s races Chris Coultard had brought the J-109 ‘MeJulie’ in second and was tied overnight with ‘Madraco’. Whether it was his attendance at the Royal Southern’s very popular Crew Ball on Saturday evening, or perhaps his non-attendance at the event, but on Sunday Chris Coultard took both guns and kept his wins on handicap. This gave him the class win. ‘Madraco’ and ‘Archibeau’ finished level on points but second place went to ‘Madraco’, again on last race results.

IRC 3 & 4 Classes

Because of the small entry in IRC 4 the two classes were combined on the start line and it was interested to see that the leading IRC 4 boat, Peter Williams quarter tonner ‘Runaway Bus’ was often mixing it with the larger IRC 3 boats and often finishing with several of them behind him. Stephen Bromley took the first short race on board his A35 ‘Aneet Djinn’ just ahead of a flock of J-92s & J-97s.

In the afternoon over a much longer course Lis Robinson’s Humphreys 30 ‘Hot Rats’ finished two minutes ahead of Richard Sparrow helming ‘Who’s to No’, his second, second place of the day. Come Sunday morning and Richard again finished second, this time behind Mike Flood’s J-97 ‘Induljence’ and at this point he was looking good for the class win. However in the final race ‘Aneet Djinn’ managed to get a small lead, which she protected on the short final beat to the finish line. Richard finished third and this was yet another class where the overall result was settled on countback.

Sportsboat classes

Whilst all this activity was happening out in the central Solent PRO Tony Lovell was in charge of the Laser SB3 and J-80 classes nearer the mainland shore. Here the wind tended to be steadier, returning to near its datum direction. Although as always when the wind is in the SE – E there are variations particularly near the shore. Tony was very pleased that all the races, for both fleets, were started cleanly under the ‘blue peter’ flag.

The Laser SB3s started first each time and first blood (figuratively speaking) went to Pieter Heyn who brought ‘MTB’ to the line a minute ahead of the fleet. Further back Peter Saxton got ‘Rola Trac’ to the line two seconds ahead of Charlie Whelan on ‘Here comes Bod’. ‘Rola Trac’ then came second to ‘Sponge Bob’ (Marshall King) in the final race of the day with the ‘Savage Sailing Team’ third but with a single point lead overnight.

‘Sponge Bob’ continued her winning ways in the first two of Sunday’s races but significantly ‘Rola Trac’ recorded a second and third whilst the other main contenders had at least one poor race. In the final race of the weekend ‘Rola Trac’ managed to gain a few boat’s lengths over both ‘MTB’ and ‘Sponge Bob’ and this win together with the discard that was allowed after six races completed gave her the class win by one point from ‘Sponge Bob’.

Saturday’s racing in the J-80 fleet was a battle between Patrick Liardet sailing ‘Aqua-J’ and Simon Stoodley onboard ‘Wairua’. Patrick ended the day slightly ahead with two wins from three. Patrick further strengthened his grip on the class by winning the first of Sunday’s races. In the next race the form book was completely overthrown with Robin Fielder, who missed Saturday’s races, took the gun and Patrick and Simon filled the last two places. Patrick finally took the class win by taking the last gun of the day with Cressida Robson sailing ‘Juicy’ second.

Overall Results

 

IRC 1	Tokoloshe	King 40		Michael Bartholemew
IRC 2	MeJulie	J-109		Chris Coultard
IRC 3	Aneet Djinn	A35		Stephen Bromley
IRC 4	Runaway Bus	¼ Tonner		Peter Williams
Laser SB3	Rola Trac	3065		Peter Saxton
J-80	Aqua-J	165		Patrick Liardet
Sportsboats	The Big Grin	8810R		David Gary
First 40.7 Nationals
1st	Incognito	Paul McNamara
2nd	Playing Around	Peter Robson
3rd	Portia	Andrew Iyer
Commodore’s Cup Trials
1st	La Reponse	First 40	Andrew McIrvine/Peter Morton
2nd	No Chance	First 35	Chris/Hannah Neve
3rd	Waterjet.co.uk	A35	Steve Northmore

For further information please go to: www.royal-southern.co.uk