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IRC Small Boat Regatta

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Published 14:01 on 16 Jul 2012

They came from the four corners of The Solent, from Portsmouth to Lymington and Cowes to Southampton to take part in the inaugural ‘IRC Small Boat Championship’. When the concept was first discussed we had no idea how many boats would enter but following a bit of ‘market research’ with prospective owners the event was on. Twenty nine boats entered!

The event was organised through the Solent IRC Owners Assoc. driven by committee members Graham Nixon and Kathy Smalley with Hamble River Sailing Club being the hosts.

The number of entries made two classes possible over a five race event, three Saturday and two Sunday. Steve Parry was CRO and laid on a variety of courses using Solent race marks most of the time. Saturday Race 1 was triangles. Race 2 sausages and Race 3 a rhombus. Sunday, due to other yachting traffic was two sausages. They say variety is the spice of life, we got it and this made for a very happy fleet.

Well we haven’t had any summer yet and Saturday didn’t disappoint. It was forecast to rain and rain it did. In Race 2 the course, committee boats and competitors disappeared into lashing rain and gloom, making one thankful for gps. It was definitely a case of hoods up, heads down while squinting out the side for oncoming traffic. A benefit, if there is one, is that all the decks, ropes and sails are squeaky clean! Sunday allowed us to leave some of the foul weather gear behind and the sun did show itself briefly.

The racing was to prove competitive and as always the way to win is first eliminate your own handicaps!

To this end in class 1 Menace was victor and in class 2 Eskimo was all conquering.

A big thank you has to go to Hamble River SC [Dermot O’Malley and Suzie Yates] for providing the base, bar, dinner and rib team, our sponsors who helped with prizes [One Sails and YouBoat], to Graham Nixon and Steve Parry for using their own boats for committee boats, Kathy and Graham for making it happen and you competitors for turning up in lousy summer weather!

By popular demand it should happen again next year, venue to be decided.

Class 1: 1st Menace – James Morland, 2nd Tinker T – David Bunn, 3rd Moondog – Andy & Peter Pickett

Class 2: 1st Eskymo – David Cowell, 2nd Svenja – Michael Stoner & David Reed, 3rd Energia – Ant Chapman

All the results can be found at www.solentirc.org.uk

Rupert Smalley

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Last updated 10:41 on 10 July 2023

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