Results / Gul RS700 Winter Championships Hayling Island - 26/02/2005

Hayling Island RS700 Winter Championships � 26/27 Feburuary 2005 Challenging in a wintry sense sums up the Gul sponsored RS700 Winter Championships held at Hayling Island Sailing Club. With Rob Wells as Race Officer you knew that no prisoners would be taken and he would run racing whatever the weather. Saturday�s racing was held in a balmy 5-6 degrees C with 6-11 knots of wind from the North East inside the harbour. Because the fleet was sailing over high tide there was plenty of water to play with and Rob set a long course with the leeward mark right next to the club. Race one began with Neil Robinson tacking off right with a great start and was never headed building up a substantial lead round the course, an impressive feat for the local boy in the lightest conditions of the day. Ben Cooper from Lymington Town and Leigh Albrecht put in a third, his worst result of the day. Race 2 was given a interesting twist with a 20 degree to the right in the middle of it which causes a bit of an upset in the pecking order. Dave Smithwhite led the fleet home with Leigh 2nd and Dave Cummings 3rd. The third race attracted the most breeze and had a few showing us how clean their undersides were. Leigh put in a 1st which gave him overnight leader. Neil was 2nd but had a 9th shocker in the 2nd race which put him down the order. Ever consistent Dave clocked another 3rd. Short and sharp races saw the fleet in the bar by 3pm. Oh dear. Most stayed till kicking out time. For those of us who went home it was a sorry sight to behold in the morning. Sunday�hmm Sunday�I do suppose they do call this the Winter Championships so it ought to be held in Winter. The club anemometer was showing 26 knot gusts, 1-2 deg C, and to give it a real Xmas flavour, snow showers to boot. Demonstrating an amazing imperviousness to the conditions 13 boats still went out and most completed all three races. Rob and the race and rescue teams deserve a medal for providing racing in the artic conditions. Race one saw Jon Heissig round in first place but the gusty conditions but the gybe saw him kissing Neptune. Neil Robinson sailed way past the layline (as did most of the fleet) to successfully gybe and hold on to 1st place from then on. Ben Cooper demonstrated the art of judging the line properly to sneak into 2nd from mid fleet. Dave Smithwhite got 3rd. Snow showers featured in Race 2 with some cracking gusts. Downwind showed the front boats reluctant to pop the kites until Alex Koukourakis put his up thus upping the game. With the wind at 25 knots there was much pulling kites down and wearing round to avoid swimming lessons but there was still lots of sport for spectators. Ben Cooper again showed where the layline was downwind and put in a well deserved 1st with Alex 2nd and Jon 3rd (Jon would have won but got blown in on the reach into the finish). Race 3 saw a lull in the proceedings but the wind built again to make the finish interesting. Dave Cummings put his bow across first with Alex 2nd and newcomer Matt Humphreys in his first event managing a third. HISC sailor Neil Robinson won the event from Ben Cooper with Dave Smithwhite getting some consistent results to finish in third.