Poole YC Regatta

An action packed weekend at Poole Yacht Club with multiple classes and fleets sharing the harbour resulted in some tight course laying in some exciting wind conditions.

The plan was for 3 races back to back, using a complicated outer loop windward leeward with a reach out and back to it. The bottom reach to the finish was a particarly 'interesting' white sailer in decent breeze. The Saturday started with a postponement waiting for the wind. When the wind arrived it quickly built to 12-15knts.

The first race started with most Cherubs on the line, sharing it with the local asymmetric fleet. After the initial beat followed a broad reach to the outer loop. Here was where matters got interesting. This was for two reasons:

a) the outer loop was tiny, about a minute downwind with the kite up b) the outerloop was set right in the middle of the slow boats course, so full of toppers, mirrors and GP14's who were making there way in lines upwind on their opening lap.

Result, frenetic activity, many near collisions and plenty of dramatic avoidance techniques required by all (including swimming for some) In between all of this, a decent race for the lead developed between Usagi and Riot Van. Not far behind there was a good tussle for position between Ronin and Badgers. Ronin showed exceptional pace footing and speeding upwind with Badgers pointing well and nailing some well positioned tacks. Result of race one was Usagi taking the bullet, Riot Van dropped back a bit, with Badgers in 3rd and Ronin 4th.

By race 2 the wind had built to 18-20knts. There was a long wait between races during which Usagi and Riot Van practiced for the sychronised capsizing event to be inaugurated at this years Nationals whilst Badgers tried to remain composed by doing some hooning and corners practise. The course remained the same, mirrors etc still present, only with more wind the closing speeds were increased! Racing was again tight throughout for the first couple of laps until mistakes took their toll and caused to spread the fleet out a bit. Badgers used their weighty experience to keep the sails pointing upwards and lead to a clear win. Ronin, Usagi and Riot Van swapped places behind with Ronin generally in front until a particularly viscious gust knocked them down and their dagger board decided it had enough of Ross bouncing on it and cracked. This left Usagi free to finish 2nd with Riot Van a fairly distant third.

The course was re-set for race three giving a longer and clearer outer loop. Only three cherubs started this race, the wind was still fairly pokey at 15-20knts with some nice sustained gusts. Badgers had clearly got over their first win nerves and cruised to have another clear win taking line honours ahead of the local RS800 and asymnetric fleet, Riot Van kept their sails relatively dry to finish second. Usagi completed some vital capsize recovery training (having capsized more in this one race than in 4 seasons of RS200 racing) and finished an even more distant third.

Cherub 2303 (The Cats Whiskers) a 1970's era Forman 4 which has recently been salvaged and brough out of retirement was being sailed in the medium handicap by Noycey's Dad and Girlfriend. They spent the day chasing GP14's playing cat and mouse with them around the course as the wind went up and down, but managed to score 2 easy bullets. This boat will be going to the nationals so we want to get as many oldies there as possible to continue the classic revival.

After sailing the fleet spent the evening sat out on the club patio eating hog roast, drinking beer and generally being merry!

Sunday dawned very windy, after a long postponement waiting for the water to arrive the majority of the Cherub fleet had decided to call it a day and pack up for long journeys home. Badgers was ready for action, but in the end opted out of launching as the only asymetric boat in an effort not to break anything ahead of Thornbury.

As memory serves, the final results looked like this…

1 - Badgers Nadgers - 3,1,1
2 - Usagi - 1,2,3
3 - Riot Van - 2,3,2

Many thanks to all that helped out to ensure all the fleet members had a great weekend, be that providing floor space for resting sleepy heads or assisting with boat transportation (you know who you are )

This weekend see's the travellers series going to Thornbury… looks to be windy again! See you there.