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Hamble River SC Wednesday Night Early Bird 4

Published 22:00 on 23 Apr 2014

Last night saw the last race of the 2014 Early Bird Series. Despite the poor weather, a stunning 18 boats came
out for what eventually turned out to be a very pleasant evening.

Our PRO Trevor Pountain set up acourse with short laps between Bald Head, Mark and Hamble Point, leaving the optionto shorten the race as the breeze was predicted to die (which ended up being a popular decision later).

The XOD was nothing but consistent with identical results for both races and the series! Shri (Ben McGrane) continued her record form to take the Early Bird series closely followed by Dux (Elliot Motherwell) whilst Sox (Simon Osgood) took third place from Kathleen (MOS Fitzgerald) who made up the quartet of early bird XODs.

In Class 3, Needlework (Peter andAnn Smith) had an excellent race finishing about 10 minutes in front of the
opposition. Despite a (very) late start, newcomer Fat Hen (Steve Powell) on her first race managed to get a promising second place in front of Forethought (Mike James). The Early Bird trophy goes to Needlework with a three points lead to Forethought and Svenja (Mike Stoner) taking the third place thanks to her first place in the only race she competed in.

Class 2 remains the most popular class of Wednesday night racing, with an impressive average turnout of 9 boats in the Early Bird Series. The start line was very busy, with Imptish (Barney Smith and Graham Tullett) miraculously finding a gap opening in front of her despite reaching late on port to make the start in time. Most of the fleet decided to go right and Imptish and Two Frank (Olly Love and Sam Flint) decided to start a proper tacking battle to keep their crew warm. Polly (Ben Meakins and Adrian Cudmore) decided to go to the left, which appeared to be a good idea. Imptish made it first to Mark, with Polly and Two Frank closely
following. Cheeky Monkey (Aiden Barr), Mist (Undraa and Ross Elliston) and Xtract (Dudley Stock) formed another small group of followers a few minutes later. These positions remained the same until the end of the race, with Imptish taking line honours (with the youngest main trimmer ever seen on an Impala) but being beaten on handicap by Polly for the first place. Two Frank took the third place. The overall podium went to the Impala Class, with Imptish being rewarded for a very consistent series, Two Frank taking second place and Cheeeky Monkey third place. There is no doubt that the competition will be thrilling in the rest of the season!

In Class 1, Triarchy (Dr Colin Kennedy) and Wee Bear (Chudziak, Horner and Malas) were the only boats out. In
the first beat, Triarchy decided to go to the right and Wee Bear to the left. The second option appeared to be the best one, with more favourable wind and tide, so Wee Bear made it to Mark with a reasonable lead, which was never to be closed with Wee Bear taking both the line honours and the win. Overall, Wee Bear keeps the Early Bird trophy for another year whilst Triarchy and Midnight Cowboy (Steph Merry) tied on points and then places so came down to count back on the last race for Triarchy to take second place from Midnight Cowboy.

The 2014 Early Bird must not be far from breaking the club records, with very impressive average of 16
competitors out and a packed clubhouse after each race. Next week is the Bottle Pursuit race with the start times available on the club website in the next day or so.

After last year’s introduction, the club is continuing the Three’s a Crowd this year. This double handed series
consists in three Saturdays of racing and is open to XODs and keelboats. The first day will be on Saturday 24^th May, save the date!

Entry to a Wednesday night racing is free and only available to members but all new boats are invited to come out and try a race for free and to join the fleet back in the Clubhouse for supper afterwards. Those looking to crew do contact the office. Full details on the Hamble River SC website so with the start of a new season come and break up the week with a dose of sea air each Wednesday evening until the clocks change.

Report Bertrand Malas
Photos Trevor Pountain and Bertrand Malas