D-Zero Sprint Championship at Hunts Sailing Club
by Jon Cowper 3 Oct 02:47 PDT
27 September 2025
On the day, five intrepid sailors turned up for some fast and furious racing at Hunts' D-Zero Sprint Championship. The day was bright and the breeze was fresh, if a little twitchy, ideal for some great racing.
Everyone involved had an excellent day and, I must admit, it was one of the best day's racing I have had in the last few years.
Steve, our excellent Race Officer, set a fun trapezoid course, and to add to the interest he set a challenging short start line too. As the format for the day's racing was a 'sprint series', our longest race was only 15 minutes to complete two laps of the course. We had 9 races in total, with 7 to count and a break for a much needed lunch in the middle.
Because of the sprint race format, racing was tight and over the whole day, no one sailor held sway, with positions changing regularly. The racing was intense and the starts important. (Though, in one race, I did manage to be the first boat to the windward mark, despite having to do penalty turns at the start!)
So after eight races had been sailed, the top three sailors began the final race on even footing, each with 11 points! The last race was critical: any one of the top 3 could claim the overall win! On the second lap heading to the windward mark, I took the chance to grab the lead, hoping to get round the mark on a port tack. Sadly, I was a bit too tight to John heading in on starboard, so ended up doing turns which relegated me to 3rd position.
John Aston came first with good, consistent, fast sailing with Paul Jefferies 2nd, yours truly (Jon) 3rd, Gordon Stewart 4th and Gary Tomkins 5th.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Sail No | Helm | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | R7 | R8 | R9 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | 3 | John Aston | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4* | 3 | DNC | 1 | 12 |
| 2 | 42 | Paul Jefferies | 4* | 3 | 4* | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 14 |
| 3 | 358 | Jon Cowper | 2 | 4* | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4* | 20 |
| 4 | 345 | Gordon Stewart | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4* | 1 | 4* | 2 | 2 | 13 |
| 5 | 158 | Gary Tomkins | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | RTD | RTD | RTD | RTD | RTD | 38 |
Hoping to rerun the event again next year for more fun!