Phantom SE Travellers Series at Shoreham Sailing Club

The bow of the winner's boat during the Phantom SE Travellers Series at Shoreham © Dave Patrick

The event was run in conjunction with Shoreham's Festival of the Sea event and with a quadrilateral course.

Day 1

10 - 18 knots wind over increasing tide, chopping between NW cross-offshore and SW thermal sea breeze, with an "interesting" chop on top of an underlying westerly swell.

Mark Spruce took race 1, hooking into the dominant NW gradient but still lost the lead and worked hard to claw it back from Alex Spurgeon and Jeremy Deacon who were virtually overlapped on the line and in spite of Jeremy's brief swim.

Titch Wayling took race 2 - getting more comfortable with the conditions, stretching his lead through the race. Steve Popple showed is legendary upwind pace for second. Sprucey broke his main halyard putting him out for the rest of the day and Ivan Walsh was flying - upwind and down to take 3rd.

Race 3 favoured the half of the fleet at the pin end and saw a new winner - Jeremy Deacon in increasing SW sea breeze. A fierce battle with Alex spurgeon allowing Titch Wayling and Dave Patrick to catch up but the duo prevailed to the finish in a hard race.

Day 2

6 - 10 knots wind and calmer sea made the fleet work hard to use the waves. There was promise of a sea breeze later, but which only developed after racing was done.

Race 4 - Sprucey took a commanding lead and was never too bothered by the rest of the fleet, was just a shame about the OCS on what was a very busy start line of 37 craft of various shapes, sizes and hull counts. This left Titch to take the race. Ivan Walsh worked up the fleet but was held off 2nd place by Alex Spurgeon, with Jeremy Deacon nipping past Dave Patrick on the final beat to take 4th.

Race 5 - Jeremy Deacon made it the first mark ahead of the rest of the fleet and held the lead until the last beat when he tacked of early and let flying Ivan nip past to take the bullet (author note: some kind of justice after race 4!).

Race 6 - Author Dave Patrick was left behind after a poor start, but flying Ivan found his grove again and worked his way up to take the race and according to the results with Titch behind. Jeremy and Alex fought for 3rd, with Jeremy taking it and Dave piping Alex at the final downwind leg.

Congratulations to Phantom legend Titch on overall first place.

Overall Results: