IBRSC Team pursuit - 26 Sept

With the less than friendly weather, grey cold northerly wind with some quite nasty squalls and rain forecast for later in the day we only had six teams sailing, the ‘Grandads’ team wisely deciding the conditions were not to their liking.

As I’m sure you all know by know we gave everyone a personal rating 0 (scratch) being fastest down to band 5 for our relative novices. This gave a very extended start sequence with a band 5 topper starting nineteen minutes before the base start, and an RS600 scratch sailor starting twenty two minutes after the base (or 41 minutes after the band 5 topper). To spread the fleet out the RO set a very long course – so long that every slot on the course board was used (good job is was a pursuit, there was no slot left for number of laps). This clearly caught out a few sailors who found an eight mark course just too much to remember!

The teams that did sail had some pretty fast sailing in challenging conditions - the personal handicaps definitely showed their worth with the first scratch sailor coming in a lowly fifth place. At the front is was James Curtis in a Topper – powering through the squalls and pulling out a huge lead for the fast boats to chase. Second was Andy Collison in the Magno benefiting from a band 5 handicap but making good use of it staying upright when many faster sailors sampled the waters. Third was Mike Storey in the EPS from band 1 with George Woolhouse (Topper band 4) just pipping Gareth for fifth.

In the team event however it was the consistency of the Curtis Crusaders that saw them clear winners. James first, Peter sixth and Mike 7^th. Second team was the Windy Wobblers - Andy Collison, Dave Simpson and Nick Marley who made good use of their personal handicaps to just pip Gareth’s team of Solo ‘Young Pretenders’ – Gareth Griffiths, Paul Playle and Ben Jones. With the conditions taking their toll these were the ony teams where all members finished.

TEAM Results

1^st Curtis Crusaders

2^nd Windy Wobblers

3^rd Young Pretenders

4^th Unattached (Mike Storey, Carl Mayhew, Stewart Harries)

5^th Wimbledon Park Wanderers (George Woolhouse, Nicholas Houchois, Ed Camberlain)

6^th Unknown Quantum (Glen Cole, Ray and Kirsty)

INDIVIDUAL results

1^st James Curtis

2^nd Andy Collison / Matthew

3^rd Mike Storey

4. George Woolhouse

5. Gareth Griffiths

6. Peter Curtis

7. Mike Curtis / Howard Shone

8. Dave Simpson

9. Ben Jones

10. Paul Playle

11. Nick Marley

12. Ray Poole

13. Glen Cole

14. Nicholas Houchois

DNF Carl Mayhew, Ed Chamberlain, Stewart Harries, Ray Lambe  and Kirsty