Helensburgh Sailing Club EMM August Regatta
by Mark Homer 14 Aug 2007 02:25 PDT
11-12 August 2007
A large fleet of Sonatas for their Scottish Championships during the Helensburgh Sailing Club Regatta © Mark Homer
3 Scottish Championships were sailed within the HSC regatta, namely Contender, Tasar and Sonatas.
PRO Bobby Lennox had his work cutout with a poor forecast of lightwinds and rain. Undaunted Bobby managed to get the full series of six races completed in varied conditions. With the wind rarely settling in any direction, the racing was no less intense and a squall on the Sunday livened things up a bit with capsizes and broaches a plenty. Mark roundings in the large varied fleet were interesting too.
Neil Wilson fresh from his Nationals 2nd took the Scottish Championship in the Contenders with a clean scoresheet, Ben Holden 2nd with all 2nds and local Calum McGregor 3rd.
In the strong Tasar fleet Pete Ellis and Charlotte Birbrek showed the way with 5 counting firsts, Geoff Henstrige and Laura Perry persistance paid of in second with Colin and Calum Tait third.
The Sonata fleet saw Saturdays leader Douglas Paton take a dive at the heels of Alan Harper who came to form winning the last 4 races in a row to take the championship. Chris Tait squeezed into second ahead of Douglas.
Simon Pender and John Patience dominated the Sonar fleet winning with a near perfect scoreline , Hugh Normand second and Griogar Whyte third.
The assymetric fleet was won by the flying Homer bros Andrew and Alistair in their Laser 4000 with 4 wins ahead of a very varied fleet , Dave Normington 2nd in his Magno and Iain Mc Intosh 3rd in the Omega.
The handicap fleet was a match race over the last three races between the 505s of Danny Read and Alistair Milton with Danny scrapping ahead by a point, the 3 505s in the class were all tied on equal points after the first days racing, Alistair Colvin in third unfortunately couldn't make the Sunday's racing.
There was a large young group of Topper sailors who enjoyed close racing throughout the weekend with winds suiting different sailors in each race. Alistair Gray came to form after the first race with a string of firsts and seconds giving him the victory. Alan Mc Intosh and Jenny Abraham both enjoyed good racing, counting race wins in their scores too, both were tied on points, the split fell in Alans favour with his better discard.