Laserfest Tri-Series Round 2 at Whitstable Yacht Club

Laserfest Tri-Series Round 2 at Whitstable © Nicky Whatley

Laserfest Tri-Series Round 2 at Whitstable © Nicky Whatley

The second WYC Laserfest had a hard act to follow following its successful 2017 launch – and with the hard work from a raft of volunteers, some great weather and the enthusiasm of the 46 competitors, its safe to say it was job done!

To remind you, dear reader, Laserfest is a club level regatta for club sailors and friends first ran at WYC last year and was hosted by Herne Bay as the first in the Laserfest Tri-series in June. To encourage the mid-fleet, sailors are split into Elite and Clubmen with an inter-club competition at all levels established for 2018.

So onto the WYC 2018 event, and let me start with an apology to all of England – the Sunday start time was brought forward to 11.00 to allow competitors to watch the World Cup final BEFORE we had won the semi-final! Gareth Southgate was plainly shocked and selected Sterling and the rest as they say is history.

With committee boat starts on a fair line ran by our amazing PRO Mark Barnes and a lively F3/4 with a little F5 in the gusts legs were well stretched but the smiles were big following the downwinds and a tired fleet enjoyed two great races back-to-back. An innovation this year was to race to PY numbers giving the bandit radials a more than fair chance of the spoils (guess which rig your author used), so congrats must go to Aussie Jeff Loosemore who came all the way from Aussieland to win the first two races.

The other podium places were shared by Ollie Cage-White and Tom Goody (both super-fit youngsters from Broadstairs) and our own super-fit Charlie Campion (old enough to be their father and sadly working on the Sunday). Through the fleet battles were had at every level as the results reflect, perhaps none more hard fought that father and WYC Laser class captain 'Cap'n Mike' Oliver and son Tom.

There was a BBQ and band on the Saturday night and much fun was had by all as legs loosened to dance the night away – thanks SQA!

Sunday dawned with wall-to-wall sunshine and a light but building breeze, and nobody had even noticed that England lost the playoff!

The first race saw lighter winds, which whilst that held back the radials (Jeff was twelfth!), gave others a chance. Whitstable's light wind bandit 'Smokin' Chris' Jarrett dominated the race by a huge margin to win from Olly Cage-White with Tom Goody back in sixth leaving all to play for in the final race.

Another fair line and a shift to lift the pin end starters to the first mark once they'd tacked onto port saw Olly a clear first followed by a scramble of standard rigs and no sign of Aussie Jeff... All over you'd think, but Jeff put in a stellar performance to pull through the big rigs on the water as the wind strengthened to gain second on corrected time ahead of Tom Goody in third.

Behind Jeff, Olly and Tom came the radials of the Thomas brothers from Broadstairs and WYC sailor Max Hunt to round off the top six.

Age group prizes went to Canadian Niall Martin (36-45), Nigel Brown (46-55) and Christian Brewer (56-65) all from WYC – well done lads, Radials next year?

And from memory the team prize for Elite sailors went to Broadstairs A: Olly Cage-White and the Thomas brothers, and the Clubmen prize went to WYC C: resident Yank and marketing guru Paul 'PK' Kelly, 'Cap'n' Mike and 'Smokin Chris' Jarrett – well done all.

And lets have another mention to our wonderful volunteers, the shore team 'AKA', Mark's committee boat crew, the rescue team and all our visitors from Broadstairs, Herne Bay, Queen Mary and Thames – and visitors you were all trumped by those from Thailand, the US and of course Australia just for the event (and the odd graduation etc).

So, whose up for taking on the Broadstairs youngsters on their own turf in early Sept?

Overall Results:

Laserfest Tri-Series Round 2 at Whitstable - photo © Nicky Whatley