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Hamble River SC Wednesday Night Early Bird 2

Published 22:00 on 9 Apr 2014

The second Hamble River SC Wednesday Early Bird race was definitely a fresher cooler evening than the previous week. The south to south westerly breeze held at 12 to 15 knots from early evening easing to about 10 knots by close of racing. HRSC Commodore Trevor Pountain did the honours as PRO and set a box course for an nthusiastic fleet of some 14 boats. The course was set beating from Bald Head to Mark, shy reaching up to Chilling for the smaller boats or William for classes 1 and 2, then reaching back down past Coronation with a right turn at Hamble Point for a kite run to the Club finish line.

Whilst the wind held to the river, the wind shadows once in the Hamble gave intermittent patches of wind with a falling breeze. Significant gains were made by one or two boats effectively using the last of the flood tide combined with “puddle jumping” the breeze, notably Imptish and Triarchy whilst Midnight Cowboy gybed into shadow and appeared to halt for a while.

Forethought of Gosport (Mike James) and Svenja (Mike Stoner) in class 3 led the fleet round the course with a good display of spinnakers from Mark onwards right to the finish line with Svenja taking both line and class honours on her first race of the year.

In class 1 Triarchy (Dr Colin Kennedy) almost repeated the line and class double on her first showing for the series but was just pipped on handicap with Wee Bear (Chudziak, Horner, Malas ) taking first place by just 19 seconds. Third place was equally contested as Midnight Cowboy (Stephen Merry) made the start line on time this week and just made pulled out 25 seconds on La Nef (John Noe).

Class 2 again had the biggest turnout with an ever increasing Impala element and probably more Impalas to come as the season goes on. This popular David Thomas designed fleet made it a hat trick in the chocolates with Imptish (Barney Smith) well in the lead and Cheeky Monkey (Aidan Barr) living up to her name snatching second from Two Frank (Olly Love) by just 10 seconds on handicap.

The attendance at the Clubhouse kept our excellent caterers busy and Chris Exton behind the bar showed off the new electronic food and beverage system to great effect and the new membership cards were busy in action.

Entry to a Wednesday night racing is free and only available to members but all new comers are invited to come out and try a race for free and to join the fleet back in the Clubhouse for supper afterwards. 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 sanity each Wednesday evening until the clocks change.

Lis Robinson

Photos Bertrand Malas:
Imptish leading Class 2
Class 1 boats catching up Class 2 boats
Light air finish at the club line