Herne Bay Sailing Club

There was a good turn out for the Pursuit race and with a gusty southwesterly gusting 12 to 20 mph it made for some interesting racing. Being a pursuit race the slowest boats started first and it speaks volumes about the turnout these days that the slowest boats were the Laser 4.7s of Ross Blackledge and Hannah Golton, followed quickly by The ‘Topper Tres’ of Tony and Jules Beaumont.

 

It was another 4 minutes 30 seconds before the next boats set sail and these were the Laser 2000s followed a few seconds later by the RS Visions and the Laser Vago.  There was a good gap before the fast boats got going and with four Hornets on the water there were all sorts of races within races throughout the competition.

 

It was good to see some friends from Deal Sailing Club testing the water before the Hornet Nationals next weekend, and this added a bit of Spice to the competition of our fearsome trio, of Chris, Duncan and Guy. Our boys didn’t see them off, but I reckon they are keeping their powder dry for next weekend. There are rumours that if Roger Hogkison can find himself an experienced crew for next weekend that he might ask to borrow one of the fleet of Hornets from ‘HORNETS R’ US owned by our own well loved old dinghy collector Chris Brealy. Watch this space, it would be great to see our all-conquering pensioner take on the likely lads.

 

After about fifteen minutes of racing the whole fleet were recalled due to an electrical failure in the Starters Cabin and the whole sequence started all over again. 

 

At the second start, the race intensified and the Laser 2000s along with the Visions had some screaming reaches as the wind gusted powerfully on two of the off-wind legs. With a larger sail area the Visions were always going to be a threat on the downwind legs but Maria and Brain Golton sailed a fantastic race to stay ahead of the fleet through to the end. Having followed them for all but the first two sections of the course they hardly made a mistakes and their up-wind sailing was the difference between them and the rest of the mono hulls in the race. Mind you, (As they say in the valleys) they didn’t do badly on the downwind legs either!

 

In all pursuit races the early boats really have to ‘Make hay whilst the sun shines’ as the fast boats following on behind are always getting closer and closer as the race progresses.  The Dart 18s of Mark & Freya Sanders, and Claire & Peter Gibson came streaming through the field at the end along with the Dart 15 of our Greybeard Champion Roger Hodgkison to take three of the top four places, but Brian and Maria Golton managed to stay just in front until the very end. 

 

It is always a sign of a good pursuit race when the competitors finish close together even though they all started at very different times.  Our thanks once again must go to the race team for setting a good course and administering a great competition.

For all those cat sailors who have been shy to come out and play this season because their boats are deemed not to be competitive against the mono hulls, just checkout the results!

 

 

1st Brian / Maria Golton-Laser 2000

2nd Mark / Freya Sanders-Dart 18

3rd Roger Hodgkison-Dart 15

4th Claire / Peter Gibson-Dart 18