So high pressure graced the waters of Chichester Harbour over the weekend, and we had two days of light wind racing. Good turnout from both clubs, with 20 boats on the water despite the dinghy park being cleared.
Some highlights from Saturdays race:
- First Northerly start for quite some time, good practice for the H&H in a few weeks. The wind was N-NE f2-3, and coming off the land was very shifty. 5 mins before the start the wind was from the right, and most of the fleet set up at the pin end as a result. At 2 minutes the wind shifted 30 degrees to the left, and so the club end of the line was favoured (better tide at that end too). A couple of boats - RS300, ISO and I think one or two Lasers) spotted this and reached down the line, then able to cross the fleet at the gun on port.
- Andy and Vicky Gould had an excellent start and were well placed to tack onto the first shift to cross the fleet. Unfortunately this put them into a tight spot with a moored cruiser, and a crash tack was the only avoidance possible - the trouble was that Vicky was still hooked on as the boat came onto the new tack. Good work to keep the boat upright, and they still cruised into the windward mark in a close 3rd.
- More grief for Andy and Vicky when they ran aground off Fowley, damaging their rudder assembly. The light winds meant that they could keep sailing, but Andy seemed to be spending a lot of time nursing the rudder round the course.
- Good result from Martin and Tom Price in their RS400 in 7th, a good margin of 3 minutes over the next 400.
- A difficult day for slower boats. Despite the relatively neapy tide, in lighter winds the slower boats spend more time fighting the tide, and hence are less competitive. But thats handicap racing, different courses and conditions favour different boats. Better to focus on positioning relative to the similar boats in the fleet, than overall position.
Sundays race was held in a E/SE F1-2, very fickle and changeable winds with big holes.
- The start was southerly on the ESC line, this time there was no doubt that the pin end was favoured. It was interesting to see the differing approaches from the fleet. The Lasers were all very keen at the pin end - they have an advantage over the faster boats as they can hold position without slipping to leeward. The ISOs and 400 find it difficult to hold station without the foils stalling and the
boats slipping sideways into other Lasers! So we ended up with 5 or so Lasers at the pin end, I was 5 boat lengths down, Andy and Vicky was just below me in their ISO and Mike and Emma opted for a more conservative mid line approach. The leading Laser was over by about two boat lengths, but continued up the course (I was spitting feathers in his dirty wind!).
- The first leg to Wickor was just off close hauled - the favorite point of sail for the 300!
- Very shallow on the way to Wickor, lots of boats found the mud banks.
- The rest of the race was essentially windward/leeward until the final leg. Lots of short tacking up the bank to keep out of the tide (the current always runs from Sweare Deep to Walsh, irrespective of the state of tide).
- No results published yet, but the stand out performance will be Ben Davis in his Finn, that boat was super charged in the light breezes. He held a 400 for most of the course, and I'm sure he was catching me as we sailed back to the club. My prediction is that he wins the race by 4 minutes on corrected time!
Next weekend we have the final race in the Browning Series (its wide open) and the Clayton pursuit race, its a busy sailing calender in October.
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