Noble Marine Solo class National Championship 2025 at East Lothian Yacht Club - Day 2

Noble Marine Solo Nationals at East Lothian - Day 1 © Steve Fraser

With racing already cancelled for the day, hulls tied down with masts removed, the sailors eased themselves into day 2 and with the breeze building to boat-breaking proportions by the prescribed 1pm start time, weather predictors breathed sighs of relief, some fist pumping while others slinked back on their Hermon Miller with quiet satisfaction.

PRO Robbie Lawson is no stranger to making the big calls and with gusts of 55 knots buffeting the town of East Lothian and various platforms predicting more of the same to come, this would not be his last tough decision.

There were no complaints from the sailors, only disappointment that it would also be too windy to play golf at the local pitch and putt at Muirfield. At least the greenskeeper could rest easy.

With conditions even too dangerous to run a tuning session in the dinghy park, the fleet retired to their various abodes and tackled the complex procedure required to turn on the TV.

Fortunately, I had acquired plenty of footage from my on-board 'transom cams' from Day 1 and so set about the time consuming task of editing it into bite-size pieces on my MacBook Pro 14, conscious that no one wants to see a sailor pissing off the back of their boat.

Unfortunately the camera fixed to Andy Davis's Solo was displaying some symptoms of water ingress into the housing so would be largely useless. 'Taxi' has a silky smooth sailing style, even in these volatile conditions so it was particularly frustrating for me to delete a load of his heavy weather footage, Andy's on-the-water results were 3-2-3 so you can understand why I am upset. I will hope to address that later in the week and moving forward we have ordered upgraded Go-Pros for the Inland Championship at Grafham in September.

It is always a relief when a sailor responds positively to my request to mount a camera on their boat, some shy away from the spotlight, confident that they will embarrass themselves and face ridicule and certain humiliation when they return to their home club. This worry is justifiable but makes great viewing.

Others, Wizards in the dark art of Solo sailing, prefer to remain invisible, conscious that revealing even one of the secret moves they utilise to get to the front of the fleet would result in immediate removal from the Solo Circle, a secret sub-organisation of the NSCA, known only as the NSCSCA. Those not in the circle know them as something else.

Fortunately, the most talented sailors rarely shirk the limelight, the exposure is always welcome if the jockey is professional and later they will micro-analyse their performance and make the necessary alterations to further improve their technique, ambivalent to any 'free' information their rivals may ween from it.

I loped along the sandy bank which lines the dinghy park, assessing potential transom cam 'volunteers' and, dodging a few losers, homed in on a young lad who already has the presence of a winner. This young man's dashing looks may one day melt hearts like Chris Brown's used to but for now he looks driven and hungry for success so a perfect patsy for my NSCA camera.

Shadowed by his father who was on agent duties, Roo Purves fiddled around in the bottom of his ride for the week, one of the Solo Demo boats, he was probably wondering what the picnic table was for or how to fold it out of the way when not eating.

I quickly introduced myself and attached the transom cam before he could answer, promising that I would make him famous and any royalties would be wired to his agent, which appeased his dad.

Later investigation revealed that Roo, as my instinct detected, is in fact a bloody good sailor, finishing eighth at the recent Wasp Games, that's eighth out of 223!

This would be Roo's first go in a Solo and what a baptism, slightly misjudging the tide at the pin end, he had to bail, the subsequent gybe resulted in dip before a recovery which was as impressive as it was quick. Unfortunately the damage was done and Roo took the rest of the race off to spend time saying some naughty words and acquainting himself with its foibles before getting back to the start for race 2.

Starting mid line and spotting a slight sag, the young Scotsman nailed it on the gun and held a strong position out to the left of the course before tacking short of the left lay line. Roo rounded third with only race 1 winner Davenport and Chris Bunn above him and Paul Davis a close fourth.

By the gybe mark on lap two, Roo was still holding third, though a distance back from Davenport, the Scotsman was flying, displaying both strength and determination in the taxing conditions only dropping to sixth after a last beat mistake while tacking in the steep chop.

Race 3 and Roo opted for a start further up the line which proved the correct decision, rounding well behind Davenport who had done a horizon job but clear ahead of his rivals.

The reaches were exhilarating, boat handling has to be on-point and the nimble footed sailor looked comfortable in the penal conditions. The split second reactions required to tame a Wasp clearly ideal to handle a Solo and he would finish the day with a second. Many thanks to Roo Purves for sharing his day 1 experience with the fleet and the World.

Not to beat my own drum but I had fitted the third transom cam to Oliver Davenport's Solo and with three firsts, we are now in possession of some TV gold.

The PRO has cancelled racing for day 3 with winds still averaging 25 knots.

The plan is to run this video footage at an impromptu tuning session today (Tuesday) in the club bar with Oliver talking through his tactics and boat handling tips and it will be recorded and circulated asap.

I will expand on the A.G.M highlights in tomorrows report, safe to say it was, as always, riveting.