National Solo Championships 2011 Day 2

by Mike Ball on 19 Jul 2011 National Solo Championships and Nations Cup 2011 were able to proceed with racing on day two for both the Brixham Trophy and the Association Gold Cup.

The day's racing proceeded amid a fresh and cold Northerly breeze. As promised, the Pro Malcolm Blackburn provided two practise Gate starts which the fleet certainly appeared to master without too many problems.

The first real race was unfortunately abandoned to be re-sailed immediately which gave the first pathfinder, Chris Brown plenty of practise for future events. On the restart, Charlie Cumberly took a very early lead with Matt Howard in second place rounding the windward mark as Charlie passed the spacer buoy. These two then maintained a clear advantage over the rest of the fleet to the end of the race. Jim Hunt took third place from Andy Davis and Chris Brown, the pathfinder, took fifth.

Ian Pinnell by virtue of his tenth place in race one became Pathfinder for race two. In this race Matt Howard made an excellent start and managed to cover Charlie around the course and again these two built up a great lead over the fleet, Jim and Andy also changed places in this race, with Ian Pinnell coming in at fifth.

There was also some consistent sailing from others in the fleet, Michael Sims with two six’s and Cliff Crashaw with a seventh and 11th. It was a long day on the water for most of the sailors and with the weather forecast being for more of the same tomorrow, it looks like Abersoch is going to provide us with a classic Solo Solo Class website