A gloomy air hung over the boat as we motored out of the Hamble in no wind, 1.5 deg Celsius temperatures towards the Solent for Race 6 of this years Hamble Winter Series. With a few good results needed to see us back to the top of the fleet we did some praying and were answered within 30 minutes by solid 12 knots of breeze from the South West and a rise in temperature, excellent news!!!

Steady Barker (Bavaria Match 38) managed to fall foul of the Z flag rule and getting herself on course side within a minute from the start meant a quiet, uncontested start at the committee boat end of the line for us and the First 34.7 Cobra. With speed from our Sanders medium no.1 we were in amongst the X 35s and the usual front-runners at the first windward mark, as well as halfway up the IRC 1 fleet which had started 5 minutes earlier! A solid reach across to the island and then a good run saw us round ahead of everyone but X-Dream and Cool Runnings, who appeared to back to her full complement of professionals. The beat saw an increase in breeze and a change to heavy no.1. It also saw Quokka (Elan 37) split from us and X 35s and round the second windward mark immediately behind us with Steady Barker (Bavaria Match 35) in close attendance. Another good run saw us maintain our position but unable to shake either of our two closest opposition. The rounding saw a split in tactics with skippers clearly concerned about the falling tide over the Bramble bank that stood directly between RYA Yachtmaster and the windward mark at West Knoll. With Quokka electing to go left and come across to the deeper water late it was with much interest that we watched her make her way back over to slot in immediately behind us and on top of (and ahead of!) Steady Barker.

Try as we might down the last run we were unable to shake the other Humphreys designed Elan although we both used good pressure to extend on Steady Barker and gain dramatically on the two X 35s. It would be all down to the last short beat to the finish at East Knoll. A solid beat saw us reel in the X35 X-Dream and more than save time on Cool Runnings but there was a nail-biting wait across the line as the seconds ticked down to Quokka’s arrival. Unfortunately (for us!) she managed to once again just save her time by 5 seconds. Our second place has seen us rise into a solid second in the overall standings and we are looking for a reversal of fortunes in the coming races to grab the number one spot.

To put into perspective how tight the racing is at the front of the IRC 2 fleet we now have four different race winners across the series, three different boat designs in the top four overall and the winning margin this week has been less time that it would have taken to read this sentence!! Quality IRC handicap racing is alive and well in Class 2 of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series.