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Home / News / An Even Bigger Wednesday!!!
Home / News / An Even Bigger Wednesday!!!

An Even Bigger Wednesday!!!

Published 18:21 on 27 Jun 2013

Hamble River SC, organisers of the Garmin Hamble Winter series and MDL Hamble Big Boats Championships, threw open its Wednesday night club racing for one night only last week in an initiative known as “Big Wednesday” aimed at raising the profile of the weekly race series enjoyed by members. Wednesday night racing for members each week starts in the vicinity of Bald Head followed by supper, prize giving and a lot of laughter at the Club and new participants are warmly welcomed. “Big Wednesday” clearly succeeded as 35 boats turned out for a perfect 10 -12 knots westerly on the water last night and an additional discard kicking in for the 7th and final race of the A series added some spice to the proceedings.

In view of the strong spring tides taking participants over the line PRO Kathy Smalley, (aka “I’m one of the helpers on the boat”), brooked no nonsense with flag Z in operation to restrain premature starters. The wisdom of the call was quickly demonstrated when the wind cut off just before the XODs on the first start and, during a sensible 10 minute AP, several XODs were swept down tide and had to be returned to the start area by engined competitors which may have cost those XODS in the bar afterwards. Each class was sent reaching along the north shore towards Meon and each on a separate course despite the PRO being restricted in the range of marks available given the extremely low and falling tide during the racing. This gave rise to some good short spinnaker legs to keep the foredeck crew from falling asleep on the rail and plenty of inter fleet conversations and negotiated crossings! The extremely low tidal levels were shown not only by the fishermen out in force on the Hamble Point spit but by several boats bumping, grounding and even grinding a few spots around the course.

Despite flag Z there was an individual recall in the ever competitive XOD fleet numbering some 13 last night. X2 on her first outing of the series took line honours closely followed by usual suspects Swallow (Simon Russell) and Dux (Elliot Motherwell) in the XOD fleet but this didn’t stop Dux from taking the series overall followed by Swallow and Kathleen (MOS Fitzgerald). The other fleets were far better behaved and Needlework (Peter & Ann Smith) took Class 3 both on the night and the series, Cockleshell (Jonty Sherwill) came in second on the night whilst fourth place went to Forethought (Mike James) mean she had to settle for third in series behind Cockleshell on count back. Mist (Andrea Undraa & Ross Elliston) in class 2 achieved second on the night, together with overall first in the A series, in an Impala sandwich between Imptish (Barney Smith) in first place and Two Frank (Olly Love) in third. This gave Imptish overall second and Sunbow 2 (Andrew Quickie) third in series despite Sunbow 2 retiring, possibly for reasons similar to the hapless Hot Rats (Robbie & Lis Robinson) in Class 1. Going into the evening on equal points with Wee Bear (Chudziak, Horner & Malas) Hot Rats powered up the leg on Code 0 over the top of La Nef (John Noe) into the lead and then came to a sudden and terminal stop just short of Royal Southern on an unchartered bump and being resigned to watch the class sail by on both sides. Despite 20 minutes of valiant efforts, including putting a man in the water, Hot Rats had to resort to engine taking another half hour to get free. La Nef battled hard against Wee Bear but were pipped by some 7 seconds with Wight Hare (Derek and Chris Hand) on storming form in third. Hot Rats obviously failed to dislodge Wee Bear from series pole position but not withstanding their DNF retained second overall by one point from La Nef.

Back at the Club the bar was heaving, the kitchen nearly ran out of dinners and a warm welcome was extended to new competitors Spacerace, J’ronimo and Miss Understood. Next week competitors are reminded that it is the inter series pursuit race so they should double check their start times on the club website. Any new entrants thinking of joining next week should contact the sailing office sailsec@hambleriversc.org.uk to make sure the race officer has sufficient information to allocate a start time.

Full Results can be found at http://www.hambleriversc.org.uk/club-racing-results

Lis Robinson

Last updated 10:41 on 10 July 2023

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