Results / Boll� RS700 Grand Prix Hayling Island SC - 29/06/2013

The RS700 circuit moved on to its second outing of the year, appropriately enough on the weekend of the Silverstone Grand Prix. On Sunday we had nearly as many blowouts!

23 boats was the best turnout we’ve had at an open meeting for a few years, with 14 visitors including a number of newcomers to the fleet . Competitors were doubtless encouraged by the final arrival of summer weather, some taking the opportunity to bring their families to Hayling Island. HISC must rank as one of the world’s best sailing clubs and on a weekend like this it’s hard to imagine better at all. We shared a course with the 800s, 3.5km southwest of the club in Hayling Bay, allowing RO Tim Polglase a free hand in course setting and, with the 800s off first we really didn’t get in each other’s way too much.

16 GPS units were deployed for the weekend and (we’re getting the hang of this now) those competitors finished top 16. See the track replays at www.hamishgriffiths.com. Feel free to download the .gpx file at the bottom of each race page (“Get files of this replay”) to manipulate in the application of your choice (I recommend http://gpsactionreplay.free.fr/ - try the free trial program which has many more features than the cut-down version on my website).

Race 1 began in only just F3 from the southwest and allowed the lighter sailors to show their skill. Jon Heissig and Steve Powell were neck and neck at the spreader and windward marks with Steve gybing and Jon leading a pack down the east side and holding on to the end. Mike Dencher pressed hard and gybed round the last mark in formation crossing the line second by a bare boat length. Jon Bennett had a nice third with Eddie Gatehouse hard on his heels. The first lap of Race 2 saw all 16 boats round the leeward mark within 90 seconds of one another. Jon was first to spot a big wind shift favouring starboard up the beat and pulled away right on the layline with Mike tagging him all the way just as before and Andy Brown beginning to show for third. Gerry Wales gave Steve a run for his money in the last of the day with Steve just winning the gybing competition on the last lap and Mike, as ever, just in their wake.

As Jimmy Buffett says of religion “There’s a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning” and so it proved. Windguru’s predicted F3 turned into a sea-breeze enhanced F5 or more and the Hayling chop, equipment and/or body breakage defeated eleven boats in one or more of the races. The Hayling boys had a field day; a bit of home advantage maybe! Race 4 got off to a messy start with a fair bit of capsizing on the line. The big boys showed their stuff though and Ian Nolan did what he does best in a bit of a breeze leading from start to finish pressed hard by local boys Ian Swann and Mark Pollington. A sad procession of boats left the water including yours truly who had taken the brilliant precaution of sailing in a vest and was nearing amphibian body temperature. Ian pulled the same trick again in the next race, this time holding off Simon Letten in incredibly close racing, the lead changing several times. A good third for Neil Ashby on his first outing with the 700s and both Denchers in close attendance. We were down to 10 GPSs by the last race! Steve Powell was back in his stride leading from start to finish with a big pack from HISC trying to run him down (anyone would think that he was a Hayling boy himself). Andy Brown squeezed in for second place and the overall lead by a point from Steve, Mike Dencher third after a broken halyard ruined his last start. Ian Swann will be happy with his fourth and Ian Nolan, clear winner of Sunday’s racing, a nice fifth.

Ian Swann was speedster of the weekend clocking 16.35kt over  10 seconds and 15.08kt for 500m; pretty impressive with the sea state.

Thanks to all at HISC for making us welcome again and to PRO Paul Carpenter for organising the race teams so well. Special thanks, of course, to Bollé our generous sponsors.

Nationals next at Eastbourne Sovereign at the beginning of August; let’s see if we can get 40 boats!

Report - Hamish Griffiths