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Hamble River SC Early Bird Series 3, 13/04/2016

Published 15:42 on 25 Apr 2016

Hamble River SC Early Bird Series 3

Race 3 in the Early Bird Series was sailed in nigh perfect conditions – a warm, sunny evening, a neap tide and the welcome arrival of a moderate SW breeze. The balmy conditions saw the already healthy EB fleet swell to 15 boats – old heads on the committee boat were heard to mutter that this was practically unknown for an April series. Newcomers included Craig Cossar's Contessa 26, Applejack, Peter Slimming's Anne Louise, Rob Denning's Sigma 38, the Sigma 33 Dino Volante and Ben Meakins' Polly, fresh from her stellar performance in Saturday's Nab Tower race.

The obvious windward mark in these conditions is Mark, just under Calshot chimney; but crossing the channel in what usually turns out to be a faltering breeze, with the threat of a large car transporter to negotiate, caused the race committee to opt for a moe conservative 'semi-windward' start to Hook buoy. From here the different classes were given a varying number of loops between Hook and Sposa; finishing at Hamble Point.

The most notable event of the evening was probably the commodore marking his first appearance on the water this year with a slightly too enthusiastic start. As it happens, the wind didn't falter – if anything, it increased slightly – and the early finishers were round in just under 40 minutes; although some managed to eke it out over the notionally prescribed hour.

In class 2, Polly enjoyed a good tussle with Needlework, but eventually prevailed; with Vlad the Impala third home – each week sees, yet another Impala added to the fleet – this week there were six!

Applejack's first outing was rewarded with a win over Mike James' Forethought in class 3; and Steph Merry's Midnight Cowboy led home class 1, in front of John Noe's La Nef, with Rob Denning' Light in third place.

Needless to say, the clubhouse was buzzing, as the crews tucked into some great food, good beer and the usual tales of 'what might have been'.