Report as seen from La Nef IV in the Sports Class.
On Friday all boats began to assemble at the Royal Southern yacht Club for registration followed by a very convivial BBQ in the marquee and surrounding deck. The evening was warm so needless to say the bar was well used!
Saturday dawned warm and sunny but windless. Our race management team managed by our friend Peter Bateson took us out to Hamble Winter Series buoy to await the wind. Looking around, we could see boats in Southampton Water sailing quite nicely with SouthamptonMet wind indicating a steady 6-8Kn. Annoyingly, we could also see boats in the Western Solent also sailing quite well, but it was not until around 12.45 that a very light breeze good enough for sailing hit our sailing zone.
At 13.00 the Sports Class was off on a triangular course in very fickle winds. To some extent it became a bit of a lottery, not helped by the fact that a ship had chosen to enter Southampton via the North Channel across which the fleet was trying to sail. Looking at the results of this race, it obviously favoured the lower handicap and older boats with Mike Garvey’s X-362S “Magec” first over the line and 2nd on corrected time whilst the winner with the lowest rating boat in the class, was the X-332 “La Nef IV” sailed by yours truly. 3rd was Johnathan Gardiner’s X-34 “Minx4”
Photo by Rick Tomlinson Photography