Grey
skies, cool, and a goodly breeze on leaving Hove for Piddinghoe on Sunday
Morning. The wind forecasts were a bit variable, anything from a force 3 to
force five but as always it is best left until one arrives at the Pond. Once
there there was a whistling in the rigging – the parked boats – but it did not
feel too strong so the boats were readied. There will be no pictures with this
report as Bett Simmons spent the morning in bed suffering from a heavy head
cold – now thankfully much better.
Rupert
Smith, RO for the day, set the course to go right round the pond, outside all
of the marks and starting from the south bank close to the eastern slipway.
Some seventeen dinghies came to the line for the off in what turned out to be a
top end force 3 with gusts I the high force 4 area. At the start signal two or three of the
faster, keener boats - Paul Ryan (Laser full rig – Hardway SC) and Michael
Veale and Mike Rosier (RS200 – NSSC) to note but two and who were close to the
bank -were already over the line and had to return to start correctly. This gave
Alan Simmons (Streaker – Lancing SC), close to the pin end of the line, clear
air for a direct line to and around the windward mark. Before he had gone too
far the faster Megabyte of Tom Taylor (NSSC) and then Paul.R had both passed
him. By the end of the first lap the order at the front had settled, briefly to
Tom.T in front, next was Paul.R, then Alan.S
with Jonty Freeman (Radial – NSSC) 4th and Darren Field and
Nathan Bloss (Vago – NSSC) behind him.. In sixth position, on the water, was
Graham Hardy (Laser – NSSC) followed by Michael.V then the Magno of David and Adrian Murley. The lower half of the
fleet was led by Louis Gorringe (Topper- NSSC) at 9th, then Bill
Waites (Laser – NSSC), Quentin and Justin Thorp (Mirror – NSSC), Zoe McCaig
(Gull - NSSC), Josh Smith (Topper – NSSC) and Alex Dodwell (Topper – BLYM).
Three boats, John Smith (Pico – NSSC), Jazz
Sayed (Topper – NSSC) and the Laser of S
Clenyn (NSSC) all failed to go through the ‘gate’ on the southern side of the
pond – the RO had to adjust positions based on the number of actually completed
laps as others also subsequently missed out the gate in this and the second
race.
By
the end of the second lap the leader was Paul.R having passed Alan.S and Tom.T with Jonty.F also pulling up a
place to 3rd in front of Tom.T. Darren. Field had been overtaken by Michael.V and
Bill.W was up to 7th ahead of Louis.G. It was all change in the
second half of the fleet, now being led by John.S followed by Jazz.S, with
Zoe.M and Josh.S crossing the line together. The tail ender was SC in his Laser
and this time Quentin.T, David.M, Graham.H all missed out passing through the
gate on the long beat up the south side.
Lap
3 saw Jonty.F pass Alan.S into second place behind Paul.R with Bill.W missing
the gate this time along with Quentin.T Alex.D and Graham.H. The Laser of S.C
and
Alex.D
both retired. Lap 4 saw no change at the front although Alan.S was but 5
seconds behind Jonty.F and Quentin.T, John.S and Graham.H all missed the gate.
In
Lap 5 it was Alan.S who overtook Jonty F to get back into second spot , well
behind the leader Paul.R. Darren.F – 6th
in the previous lap – had problems with his spinnaker and dropped back to 8th
on the water . This time round nobody missed the gate but some of the tail enders
had already been finished or had retired. Lap 6 saw Jonty.F get ahead of Alan.S
once again, by 24 seconds, with Tom.T still behind in 4th place. In
the 7th and final lap there were no place changes though Jonty F pulled
out a little more ahead of Alan.S. Once the handicaps had been worked out the
order was 1st.Paul.R, 2nd. Alan.S, 3rd.
Jonty.F, 4th.Louis.G, 5th. Tom.T and 6th.
David.M
Race
2 of the day (Race 12 in the Iceberg Series) was held over the same course as
before with Jonty.F getting the best of the (rather more disciplined) start and setting off at a cracking
pace - and to remain unchallenged
throughout the race.. By the end of the first lap the top of the fleet order
was Jonty.F, Paul.R, Tom.T, Darren.F, Alan.S and Michael.V. Mid fleet the order
was Bill.W (7th), Louis.G, John.S, David.M and S.C. In the lower
echelons Josh.S (12th) led Quentin.T, Zoe.M, Alex.D, Jazz.S and
Mel.D. whilst Graham.H retired. In lap 2 Jonty.F remained out in front pursued
by Paul.R, then Tom.T with Alan.S – having overhauled Darren.F – close on his
tail. On this lap both the Laser of SC and Topper of Alex.D failed to go
through the gate. There were no other place changes down the fleet and it was
not until lap 5 when Tom.T, in attempting to gybe in a heavy gust on the east
side of the pond - just before the Island - had a spectacular capsize allowed
Alan.S up into third place. Tom.T recovered with enough margin to stay ahead of
Michael.V who was in turn in front of
Bill.W, Darren.F and Louis.G. Jonty.F extended his lead until at the finish,
lap 7, he was over a minute ahead of Paul.R who in turn was two minutes ahead
of Alan.S.
After
calculating the results/handicaps the winner was Jonty.F with Alan.S in 2nd
place and Paul.R in 3rd. 4th
place went to Loius.G with Tom.T 5th and David.M at 6th.
For full
results follow this link - http://www.nssc.org.uk/results/2012/freemaniceberg.htm
Alan.S 1700
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