Frostbite sailing on Chichester Harbour

Charlie Duchesne reports on this weekend's International 14 racing

15 boats gathered at Itchenor SC for the Frostbite Open Meeting on 6 November. The fleet gradually made their way afloat for a relaxed first start at 14.10. Some were a little too relaxed and missed out on the first race!

In a light northwesterly the race officer Peter Taylor set a short three lap windward-leeward course to get race one completed quickly. The fleet split on the first beat coming back together very evenly at the first mark. Archie Massey and George Nurton rounded first and slipped away on the run, maintaining their lead, in clear air, to the finish. James Fawcett and Dave Dobrijevic were sailing a tidy race in second while Andy Penman and Tim Bastow managed to work past Roddy Bridge and Toby Lewis on the third beat to take third place. Moving through the fleet throughout the race were Charlie Taverner and Ed Clay. They were OCS at the the start, but having gone back and cleared themselves they staged a strong recovery to finish 6th.

The course for Race 2 was to take the fleet on a short beat to the same windward mark, from which the fleet would reach down the harbour to Dunes, before beating up to a mark in the Emsworth Channel then heading back to the Itchenor Club line with just one turning mark on the way. An unusually simple course giving a brief tour of the harbour before it got dark for the day.

After another close start the fleet rounded the top mark in close formation and set off to Dunes. Several boats ran aground on the two sail reach which shuffled the pack a little. Archie Massey and George Nurton made the firmest contact with the bottom of the harbour thanks to their extra long daggerboard. By the end of the beat up the channel James Fawcett and Dave Dobrijevic had taken the lead from Charlie Taverner and Ed Clay with Penman and Bastow chasing hard. The only real issues on the way home to Itchenor were the various sandbanks of Chichester harbour. James and Dave crashed into the Stocker Bank on a tight three sail reach but recovered from this spill very quickly to hang on to third place. Charlie Taverner and Ed Clay were forced to drop their spinnaker early as the bank approached but held good speed on a 2 sail reach to stay in front of Penman and Bastow until they could hoist again and run down to the Club to take the win.

Unfortunately Sunday morning dawned grey, windless and distinctly uninspiring. Nigel Pattisson was race officer for the day and made a sensible call to abandon for the day when the lightest of breezes dropped to nothing.

Overall results after 2 races.

1st GBR 1479 Andrew Penman and Tim Bastow race 1-3rd race 2-2nd 5pts
2nd GBR 1511 James Fawcett and Dave Dobrijevic race 1-2nd race 2-3rd 5pts
3rd GBR 1476 Archie Massey and George Nurton race 1-1st race 2-5th 6pts
4th GBR 1466 Charlie Taverner and Ed Clay race 1-6th race 2-1st 7pts
5th GBR 1505 Roddy Bridge and Toby Lewis race 1-4th race 2-4th 8pts