Poole Week 2025, in association with Haven Knox-Johnston - Day 4
by David Harding 27 Aug 22:41 PDT
24-29 August 2025
A Wait For The Wind To Wane
Whether good things always come to those who wait might be debatable, but they certainly did on Wednesday.
The morning really wasn't very nice: lots of rain, and gusts up to nearly 30 knots. When competitors started arriving at Parkstone Yacht Club, it was still wet and windy, so there was relief all round when flags were flown to signal an hour's postponement, until 15:00, in the hope that things would improve during the afternoon.
After an hour, the wind had come down and so did the flags. People started scurrying around in earnest, and the day's action began.
Wednesday was a day for the Flying Fifteens, Redwings and ILCAs to race from the committee boat in the Top Triangle, while the Wayfarers, Darts, XODs, fast and slow handicap, Merlin Rockets, RS200s and 400s and Shrimpers started from the Platform.
The top end of the ILCA fleets is typically incredibly close and with many place-changes along the way. The best way to see who went where and to follow every tack and gybe for the whole fleet is to look on TracTrac, which uses GPS trackers to show the positions from start to finish. Each race for the fleets fitted with the trackers - ILCAs on Wednesday, but different fleets every day during Poole Week - can be viewed on the TracTrac web site.
In the ILCA 7s, Alan Davis pulled through from a mediocre (by his standards) start to finish a close second in the first race to Stuart Hudson from Lymington. Davis then won the second race from Parkstone's Chris Whalley. Not surprisingly, it's these three who currently fill the top three positions overall.
The racing was just as tight in the ILCA 6s (Radials). With the Hakes brothers having only sailed on the first two days, when between them they won all three races, the battle for the top slot is being fought between last year's winner, Roger O'Gorman, and last year's runner-up (by one point), Rob Jackson from the Cayman Islands. On Wednesday this pair each scored a 1st and a 2nd, Jackson's win in the second race keeping him four points clear at the top.
Other boats to have been trading firsts and seconds all week are the Melges 15 of Liam Pardy and David Evans's Contender. With each again scoring a win and a 2nd, they ended Wednesday still level on points.
On Sunday and Monday these two were joined in the fast handicap fleet by an RS800 sailed by Kirsten Glen and Jack Bowen, but Tuesday and Wednesday were a tad breezy for a new pairing in a high-powered skiff. Jack busied himself looking after Parkstone's on-site Quay West Chandlery on Tuesday before jumping into the sharp end of a Merlin Rocket on Wednesday.
The Merlin Rockets are yet another class with a two-way battle at the top, Parkstone's Steve and Ally Tyler being tied on points with Mike and Jane Calvert from Axe Yacht Club.
Visitors are also making their presence felt in the RS400s, with John Heissig and Nicky Griffin from Llangorse establishing a healthy lead over Howard Farbrother and Louise Hosken from Lymington. Parkstone has a competitive fleet of 400s, but as none of them has been able to sail more than a few races they're not featuring in the overall standings.
Wednesday was a better day for the home club in the XODs, however. At the end of the day's race around the islands, Willie McNeill in X123, Lara, was hot on the heels of overall leader John Tremlett, who in turn was a few yards adrift of fellow Itchenor sailor Roger Yeoman.
So much for the results - but what happened with the weather? Well, the wind continued to moderate and the sun even put in an appearance towards the end. It was definitely an afternoon's sailing worth waiting for.