Race Reports
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Pursuit Series Race 1 - 8th April 2023A glorious Saturday afternoon saw the first in the pursuit series at Dell Quay SC with 6 boats signing on comprising of 6 different classes.
With a nice 6-10 knts south/south easterly breeze, race officer Stephen Holcroft set a simple course beating to Crouchers then Kiln followed by a reach to Copperas West, and a downwind leg to Hook.
Holly Wilburn's Laser Radial went away first followed by the Solo of Graham Dalton, Dalton getting off to a fine start and quickly overtaking the Radial. Next off was Mike Dicker (Vareo), followed by Duncan Llewelyn (Supernova), Jack de la Hunty (Aero 7) and last Jon & Megs Wilburn in the RS 400.
The Supernova of Llewelyn was going very well in the early stages quickly catching others before unfortunately missing and having to turn back to the Crouchers mark. In the mid stages of the race, it was Dicker (Vareo) and de la Hunty (Aero 7) that had overhauled the others and were having a fantastic battle for first, frequently changing places. Late in the race Dicker with spinnaker up took full advantage of an increase in wind and a downwind leg to fly past de la Hunty and looked to be firm favourite.
In the final stages the Wilburn's (RS 400) came from what looked like nowhere to join the end battle, de la Hunty kept his cool and sailed past Dicker upwind to take a well-deserved first, Dicker skilfully held off the RS400 to take second with the RS 400 finishing third. With just a few boat lengths between the first three it was an exciting finish to great first race in the series.
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Pursuit Series Race 1 8th May 2022
A glorious Sunday afternoon saw the first in the pursuit series at Dell Quay SC with 8 boats signing on. Pursuit races have the slowest boats starting first, the fastest last, the aim being to get to the front by the end of the 90-minute race duration.
Race officer Stephen Holcroft set a simple upwind/downwind course to take advantage of the nice 6-10knts southerly breeze, going to Kiln, Copperas West and Hook marks.
De la Huntys Laser Radial went away first followed by the three Solos of Hilgers, Nicky Buchanan and Purdy.ÂÂ Hilgers getting off to a fine start and quickly overtaking the Radial. Next off was Francis (Graduate), followed by Dickers (Vareo), Andrew Buchanan (Finn) and last some 27 minutes after the Radial Chrystall and Tomlinson in the RS 800.
Hilgers was chased down by Francis who took the lead, the Graduate racing well in the light winds, Purdy made up ground rapidly and went into second place, the Vareo of Dicker was taking advantage of the long downwind legs and looked to be catching the leaders at one point before the wind died down too much to make his spinnaker effective.
In the final stages Purdy looked like he was going to catch Francis, but time ran out and in the end, Francis took a well deserved win, with Purdy second and Hilgers third.
