Plymouth Gin Series Week 1

Plymouth Gin Series Week 1 © Chris Hampe

Plymouth Gin Series Week 1 © Chris Hampe

The Plymouth Gin Series returned to Plymouth Sound on Easter Sunday for the first two races of the four week long series. This year saw a change of format to make all races windward leeward and to also conduct the first UK trial of the ORC handicap system. This would see boats triple scored under IRC, NHC and ORC.

So the big question of the day should have been who would win the first ever ORC race in the UK? But such were the conditions at the scheduled start time of 10AM a bigger question was would we get any racing in at all? The weather station at Rame Head was reading 3 knots easterly But within Plymouth Sound the wind had other ideas with a very light north westerly initially blowing down from the mouth of the Tamar. Eventually the land heated up and a 4 knot southerly filled in Once the committee boat had relocated close to Drakes Island the first race got underway at 11:50.

Race 1 saw Alan Meredith's Prima 38 Al Fresco establish a good lead on the chasing pack and they would hold on to win under both NHC and IRC. The winner of the first race under ORC however went to the J24 of Steve Wassell from Torpoint Mosquito Sailing Club. Steve Andrew's J70 Red Dog scored 3rd place in both NHC and ORC and the Corby 25 belonging to Sean Koehler rounded out the podiums with 3rd under IRC.

For the second race the course was extended in length with the wind having built to 7 knots and it was the pair of J70's that dominated the results. Steve Andrew from the Royal Western Yacht Club took Red Dog to victory in all three classes ahead of Steve Northmore on Waterjet. Al Fresco held onto a 2nd place under IRC But fell to 7th under NHC following their race 1 victory.

After racing the days prize giving saw copious amounts of Plymouth Gin handed out thanks to our generous series sponsors and the usual talk of handicaps filled the bar as the experts discussed the pros and cons of each of the three handicap systems. It looks like we are going to have a fantastic series and it will be very intresting to see how the results differ between NHC, IRC and ORC as the series progresses.

Week 1 Results: