Rooster Southern Topper Traveller Series Event 1 at Hamble River Sailing Club

Rooster Southern Topper Traveller Series Event 1 at Hamble River © Shaun Murphy

Rooster Southern Topper Traveller Series Event 1 at Hamble River © Shaun Murphy

Rooster Southern Topper Traveller Series Event 1 at Hamble River © Shaun Murphy

27 Topper sailors arrived early on Sunday morning at HRSC, all looking forward to the first event of this year's Traveller Series.

After the 8.45am briefing the 14 x 4.2s and 13 x 5.3s launched and headed out towards Cat Head Bay where the HRSC race management team already had the course all laid out. With a plan to run 4 races before the plug was pulled out at 1pm, both sailors and volunteers afloat were keen to get on with it!

First off on the outer loop of the Trapezoid course were the 4.2s followed 5 minutes later by the 5.3s. In Race 1 in the 4.2 fleet Phileas Rousselle showed his knowledge of local waters by securing an excellent first with Charlie Shires taking the victory in the 5.3s, closely followed by Eve Wealthy.

Henry Cruse sailed very well to take Races 2 and 3 in the 4.2s with James Broad taking R2 in the 5.3s and Eve taking the 5.3 bullet in R3.

With a discard kicking in after Race 4 the sailors were busy calculating points and positions as they waited for the last start!

Spotting a port bias on the line Hendricks Long shot off the 4.2 start line well ahead of the fleet in R4 and sailed well to secure a bullet. In the 5.3 fleet Charlie got a great start and held on for his second win of the event.

Once back at HRSC's welcoming clubhouse all participants were awarded with a specially branded "Rooster Southern Topper Traveller Series" neck gaitor from ITCA Southern Reps Andy Le Grice and Roger Cerrato.

Roger also thanked all the HRSC team for running such a great Open meeting and managing to get 4 good races into 3 hours afloat.

5.3 winner Charlie summed up the event: "The event was amazing, the race officer and his team were very friendly and the course was great. There was some very competitive racing. The wind was very up and down with very big gusts and then also times when there was not a lot of wind. The clubhouse was great with good staff and great food. Overall the weekend was great fun with good racing and I had a lot of fun."

Well done to all our winners and we look forward to seeing everyone again at Portchester SC on May 12th. Entry open here.

As usual we'll be running open training on the day before the Open, enter here.

Overall Results: