East Kent Radio Sailing Club DF95 Spring Series Event 3 at Barton's Point Coastal Park

Upwind during DF95 Spring Series event 3 at East Kent RSC © Alan Hounsell

Fifteen DF95 sailors turned out for East Kent RSC's 3rd Spring Series meeting at Barton's Point, Ralph Wilkinson and Jim La Roche undertaking race officer duties. Dave Adams kept the courses in line as the light winds firmed up but kept shifting throughout the 16 races, producing 7 different winners.

Adrian Tomlinson started with a win, from Mike Brand and Colin Honour, but then slipped to mid fleet for 3 races as Rob Maunder then Peter Jackson took wins, with Dave and Robert Owens, then Mike and Dave filling the podium. The fancied boats were down the pan in race 4 as Colin took the win from Alan Hounsell & Rob. Mike then hit the top step, from Peter and Adrian, who then took race 6 from Mike with Alan in 3rd.

Boats resting during DF95 Spring Series event 3 at East Kent RSC - photo © Alan Hounsell

Clear ahead and scrapping for the led in race 7 Mike And Peter got the wrong side of a shift and let six boats through, led by Paul Woodward. Robert Owns slipped by Paul to get the win, with Dave in 3rd. Paul never did get in gear or back on the podium. Dave then finally made it 7 different winners with a win in race 8, from Mike and Adrian. Adrian got his third win in race 9 to get his nose in front of Dave (2nd), Peter (3rd) and Mike for the event. Rob Owens, after 2 more poor finishes, won race 10 from Mike and Colin.

Adrian's 4th of 5 wins came in race 11. Dave. now ahead of a Adrian due to consistency, took another of five 2nd places ahead of Alan. Then Peter hit the front again with two wins in a row, one from each of Dave and Adrian with Alan 3rd in both. It remained all to play for among the leading 'gang of 4' with 3 races to go. Peter was then a marked man, incidents dropping him to 9th in race 14 and Mike staked his claim by winning, from Adrian & Dave. Adrian and Mike then had problems in race 15, Colin taking his second win, from Dave and Peter.

Leeward mark rounding during DF95 Spring Series event 3 at East Kent RSC - photo © Peter Jackson

Adrian then had 4 wins from Peter's 3 Mike & Robert's 2 and all the rest on 1. But Dave only had to finish in the top 7 to take the event as his lowest score to count was 4th and Adrian had three 7ths. Mike's problem led to a DNS and Adrian led around imperiously from Peter, having to settle for 3rd, but Adrian's win wasn't enough to knock Dave off the top spot. Colin Honour got Peter on the line for 2nd. Only a max of four places separated each of the top four places overall before a gap of 13 to Colin then 5 more to Alan

Spring Series Event 2 Results: (top ten)

1. 358 Dave Adams
2. 30 Adrian Tomlinson
3. 211 Peter Jackson
4. 875 Mike Brand
5. 48 Colin Honour
6. 380 Alan Hounsell
7. 571 Rob Maunder
8. 20 Paul Woodward
9. 479 Robert Owens
10. 26 Peter Glover