A great weekend at Warsash SC for Round 3 of the Rooster & Zest RS400 Southern Tour.
Howard Farbrother and Lou from Queen Mary SC took the overall victory on countback after finishing the three races tied on 13 points with Pete Mitchell and Sarah Newton of the host club.
They say never mention the weather or the food unless it is critical to the event result, however, the weather was warm and the breakfast was excellent, so most competitors sat out on the veranda engaging in some classic sailing chat while waiting for the breeze to turn-up.
And when it finally arrived race one was started cleanly first time in a South easterly force 2, with Steve and Sarah Cockerill bursting out of the blocks to assert some early dominance.
The presence of the Solent tides caught out a few competitors requiring the fleet to point about 20 degrees below the wing mark in order to remain on the rhumb line (tech term refer to Wikipedia). Steve Restall and Chris Stubbs came in 2nd with Howard Farbrother and Lou 3rd.
Race two was even more challenging than race one. With the majority of the fleet desperately sailing downwind to stem the tide at 20 seconds to go it was amazing that this one also got away first time.
In this roll of the dice Restall and Stubbs proved themselves to have mastered the sloppy solent and took the line honours with Howard and Lou 2nd and sibling superstars Caroline and Adam Whitehouse 3rd.
Race three started in significantly more breeze, with enough to get fully hiked and planing at points. Bruce Mills and Andrea Jarnan from Warsash SC stormed the first beat but there was some confusion about the spreader at the top mark which resulted in the fleet catching up.
Alex Horlock and Robin Kirb fought their way to front up the second beat and had a significantly lead, which was quickly closed on the final downwind by Steve and Sarah Cockerill, and Sean Cleary and Ian Verso making for a tight finish.
The second day brought more pondering upon the vagrancies of the weather, the race team made a sensible decision and allowed people to go home after a couple of hours.
Sean Cleary
RS400 – Round 3 of the Rooster & Zest RS400 Southern Tour
1st H Farbrother and Lou Queen Mary SC 3 2 8 – – 13 pts
2nd Peter Mitchell and Sarah Newton Warsash SC 4 5 4 – – 13 pts
3rd Steve Restall and Chris Stubbs Downs SC 2 1 13 – – 16 pts
4th Steve Cockerill and Sarah Cockerill SBSC 1 14 2 – – 17 pts
5th Caroline Whitehouse and Adam Whitehouse Bartley SC 9 3 5 – – 17 pts
6th Alex Horlock and Robin Kirby Warsash SC 8 15 1 – – 24 pts
7th Mick Whitmore and Sarah Whitmore ESSC 5 13 6 – – 24 pts
8th Rob Jones and Geoff Camm Warsash SC 7 7 10 – – 24 pts
9th Sean Cleary and Ian Verso Oxford SC 16 6 3 – – 25 pts
10th Richard Gray and Jon Dyas Queen Mary SC 6 8 11 – – 25 pts
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