With another cold North Easterly breeze, rain for the whole race and a strong west going tide, it was a miserable set of conditions that welcomed the crews to the start for Race 6 of the Hamble Winter Series.

The start line again showed a little bias to the pin end and we were able to duck the stern of the Bavaria Match 38 Steady Barker and tack away onto port right on the gun in order to take an early lead. Good boat speed up the beat saw us first around the windward mark and extend the lead slightly as we lead to the leeward mark. A wind shift had made the next leg to Deck a close call as to whether a spinnaker could be carried. Never one to shirk a challenge, and with the opportunity to go slightly low to cheat the tide before lifting onto the mark with only white sails if required, we were the only boat to carry the kite the length of the leg which had seen most boats dropping to two sails before then re-hoisting when they realised that spinnakers could indeed be carried.

This had consolidated our lead and having survived a scary windless patch midway through the second run we were able to carry our lightweight number one well over its limits with a flattened mainsail in the ever building breeze up to the finish off of Hill Head.

A first place finish on the water translated to a corrected first place by four minutes and ten seconds from the HOD 35 Carpetbagger and the Elan 40 Passion, making it a 1, 2, 3 for Rob Humphreys designs.

With a scoreline of 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 we now have a 13 point lead in IRC2, and have high hopes of taking the series by finishing the last two races with similarly good results.

Regards,

Lucky Jim