Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier 1 at Stokes Bay Sailing Club

The first qualifier of the 2022 season saw the 67-boat strong ILCA 6 fleet take to the waters of Stokes Bay Sailing Club. Located on the Solent the weekend promised wind, waves, tide and the forecast predicted the fleet would complete the 6-race schedule in a beautiful breeze.

The quality of the fleet was strong, containing World and European champions/medallists from various age categories, British Sailing Team members and Youth Squad sailors. With quality racing on the menu the first race was highly anticipated with many sailors training throughout the winter for this moment.

Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier at Stokes Bay - photo © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

Saturday

The sailors woke on Saturday morning to 15 knots of wind from the south forecasted to track left throughout the day, with most of the races being completed in a south-easterly. Those who know Stokes Bay well will know that breeze from the southeast runs almost directly down the Solent between the IOW and the mainland. This leads to a relatively consistent wind meaning the influence of tide would likely play a bigger role in race strategy. However, the qualifier took place during neap tides, posing a question: how important would the neap tide's influence be?

The first race got under way and in search of his first qualifier win B.Elvin demonstrated his intent, winning a biased pin end, crossing the fleet and leading the entire race to take the win at the finish on the waters of his home club. Snellgrove and Mitchell used their boat speed to convert top 6s at the first WW mark to top 3s by the end of the race finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier at Stokes Bay - photo © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

Perhaps one of Stokes Bay's greatest features is the location of the race area. The committee boat is anchored just off the shore, perfect for the late launchers within the fleet and the spectators. What this does mean however, is that there is often a tidal gradient as you get further away from the shore and into the channel. The influence of more favourable tide on the right increased throughout the day and, while the left was looking good in the first race, a long delay caused the right to demonstrate its worth in the second race of the day. Snellgrove took advantage of this best, often taking the biased right turn at the bottom gate before promptly tacking to make her way over to the right. Snellgrove took the race win followed by B.Elvin who had been battling for much of the race with Kempe who finished 3rd.

With the wind against the tide, line awareness was critical, fortunately there was a reasonable amount of pin bias helping to minimise the number of boats BFD'ed during Saturday's racing. Brown made the most of the pin bias in the 3rd race of the day arriving at the WW mark just ahead of C.Elvin following a lee-bow manoeuvre. Brown led for much of race 3, with the Elvin pair behind, before forgetting how to count to 2 and backing himself to hold the fleet off for one more lap than he needed too. Whilst Brown set off for an additional lap B.Elvin breezed past him taking the victory at the finish with a frustrated Brown in 2nd and C.Elvin in 3rd.

Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier at Stokes Bay - photo © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

Rumour has it Brown told B.Elvin that he'd better go onto win what would be his maiden qualifier victory after Brown's mistake had cost himself victory in the 3rd race on Saturday. Sunday racing would be the decider of that and the stage was set for a titanic battle between two greats of the fleet, B.Elvin and Snellgrove.

Overnight standings were as follows: B.Elvin in 1st, Snellgrove in 2nd and Brown in 3rd. Local knowledge was of clear importance with Stokes bay sailors sitting in 1st, 3rd and 5th overnight.

Sunday

Sunday posed some new questions for the fleet with the breeze at 12 knots from the south. Today the breeze was coming off the IOW and this added big differences in pressure and shifts to the mix. The tide was also supposed to eddy and be quite different dependent on the race area. This caused a split of decision within the fleet. B.Elvin, Brown and Kempe started at the pin and worked the left side of the course while, on the other side of the course, Snellgrove and Emmett were enjoying the lifts the right had to offer. As a result of this Snellgrove led at the WW mark and took victory by a fair distance utilising her skill to navigate the shifts and pressure variations. B.Elvin was once again in the top 3, finishing 2nd, utilising the waves he knows so well to overtake boats downwind. Kempe followed in 3rd.

Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier at Stokes Bay - photo © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

When the 2nd race of the day began much of the fleet had decided that they liked the right-hand side and started towards the committee boat. Local sailor C.Elvin sailed a fantastic race, cheered on by her clubmates onshore, and led for much of the race before being overtaken by Snellgrove not long before the finish. B.Elvin continued his trend of not finishing outside the top 3 by sailing through the finish line in 3rd.

So, it was time. The last race of the event would decide the winner. If Snellgrove finished inside the top 2 she would win. The last race saw lots of the fleet switch up their strategy from the 2nd race of the day, tempted by pressure on the left and some line bias, to start towards the pin end. Unfortunately, for many of these boats the wind was once again against the tide, and this combined with a starboard lift resulted in lots of the fleet getting a BFD to end their event. Over 25% of the fleet received at least one black flag across the two days and in the 6th and final race of the event Snellgrove was unfortunate enough to be one of those boats.

Noble Marine / Vaikobi ILCA 6 Qualifier at Stokes Bay - photo © Lotte Johnson / www.lottejohnson.com

The result was as follows: B.Elvin, local legend and ILCA 6 supremo, won his first qualifier after years of trying. An excellent and well-deserved result for the local lad. Graham-Troll and Thurlby both had brilliant results in the 6th race of the event finishing in 1st and 3rd respectively with Kempe between them in 2nd.

The overall results looked as follows: B.Elvin in 1st, Snellgrove in 2nd and Kempe in 3rd.

Thank you to all the volunteers helping to ensure smooth running of our qualifiers and to Stokes Bay Sailing Club for having us at such a wonderful venue. Join us at one of the next two qualifiers down in Weymouth!

Overall Results:

Thanks to all those who support the ILCA fleets:

• Noble Marine - has crafted a very competitive and excellent insurance product for all Laser/ILCA sailors. A very personal service and an extremely useful website help make this the 'go to' company. www.noblemarine.co.uk
• Sailingfast - Duncan brings his battle bus down from Scotland for most the big events, which is so ridiculously well equipped, you could replace everything on your boat. Although based in Scotland they will get anything to you super fast. He also supplied many of the prizes for the draw on Saturday evening. Check out his website: sailingfast.co.uk
• Vaikobi - a brand born on the waters of Sydney Harbour, out of a passion for all ocean sports. Across the team, we paddle, Surfski, SUP, Wing Foil and Sail. Sailing has been a passion within the business right from the start. The senior management team at Vaikobi comprise more than fifty years of marine industry and sailing experience between them. Visit www.vaikobi.com
• Ovington Boats - Chris Turner lives dinghies and has been a significance presence in the boat building world for decades. OB are now the official UK builders of ILCAs. A very smart new Ovington ILCA Dinghy was on display at the Masters event. Visit www.ovingtonboats.com