This year’s Championship Weekend was held over the second weekend of July in mixed conditions with lighter winds on Friday and Sunday while Saturday gave the competitors winds up to 20 knots to contend with. In a change from last year Championship Weekend was a dinghy only event with the boats split into three classes, catamarans, class 6 (asymmetric fleet), and class 7 (handicap fleet). Racing was held over three days with a practice race held on the Friday evening and four races on both Saturday and Sunday.

This year was the first time a separate catamaran class was held due to their increase in numbers in Guernsey over the past year. With seven boats in the class, three of which had travelled from Jersey for the competition, the racing was close. The Friday practice race was a dead heat between Darren Stower and Pete Longstaffe’s Hobie Wildcat and Benn Garnham and Paul Harris’ Hobie Tiger “Poker Face”. Saturday brought stronger winds and sunshine, ideal conditions for these boats to show how they can perform, speeds of over 20 knots downwind were the norm. The stronger conditions favoured the Jersey teams of Darren and Pete’s Wildcat and Andy Hart and Mike Kinross in their Tiger “Breaching 69”, between them sharing the wins over the four races. Sunday saw lighter winds and changes at the top with local team Laurie Watson and Adam Read taking the first win.

Throughout the rest of the day the Wildcat sailed well with Breaching 69 also in the top spots securing first and second respectively over all, with Poker Face coming in third.

Four boats competed in Class 6 with their first race being on the Saturday. The strong winds enabled these boats to show their true potential. Leading the fleet around the course was Matthew Stark in his singled handed RS700, Stark Attack. Matthew excelled in the challenging conditions scoring a win in the first race by over ten minutes on corrected time ahead of the RS500 of Stuart and Carol Bloese. The fleet was reduced to three boats for the start of Race 2 with the RS400 of Allister Cleal and Gillian Macleod retiring before the race. Race 2 also saw the RS500 pull out due to fatigue leaving Matthew to compete against Dave Le Page and James Dorey in their RS400 for the remainder of this race and race 3. Matthew continued to dominate the competition and recorded two more firsts. Sunday saw a return for all the competitors and lighter winds, with all boats finishing very close on corrected time and only seconds separating first from last place, however Matthew was able to consolidate his lead, despite taking most of the skin off his fingers, and take first place ahead of Dave and James and Allister and Gillian one point behind in third place.

The Class 7 fleet of seven boats was depleted by the absence of several potential competitors, either on holiday or competing in the Laser 4.7 European Championship in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, there was some very tight racing.

On Saturday the fleet enjoyed some excellent sailing in a gusty south-westerly Force 5-6. The racing developed between two pairs. At the front, Andrew Bridgman in his Laser Radial showed good boat speed in the breezy conditions and took three first places against Henrik Asplund’s one win in his Laser Standard. Following behind, Keith Le Page (Laser Standard) and Steve Rickards (GP14) enjoyed their own tussle, ending up on even points after the first day.

Sunday provided much more docile conditions, with a shifty westerly Force 3 making for interesting tactical conditions. Charles Cooper in his Finn, who had not raced on Saturday due to the conditions rejoined the fleet. Charles and Henrik both revelled in the lighter winds taking two first places each. Andrew sailed consistently, taking two second places despite the inferior power: weight ratio of the Laser Radial in these conditions providing a very tight finish. However, Andrew just lost out in the final race when Charles edged him into third position behind Henrik. With Henrik and Andrew level on points at the end of the races it was down to a count back where Henrik had just done enough to beat Andrew into second place, ahead of Charles in third. Steve again sailed well to claim the “best of the rest” contest against Keith by a single point. Had there been a “best improver” prize, he would surely have won it.

It was an exciting weekend with lots of competitive sailing, and hopefully the start of more inter island competitions. A big vote of thanks should go to the crew of Rescue 1 and the safety boat, as well as race team, in particular, to John Gaisford, who was kind enough to act as Race Officer for the weekend and to offer his own motor cruiser as the Committee Boat.

The next inter-island dinghy competition sees the resurrection of the Shearwater trophy, a race between Guernsey and Jersey for the catamarans, with the prevailing conditions, a time of sub two hours to compete the 26 mile course is not out of the question.
 

Photos courtesy of Simon Rowe.