Warming Pan

Mark Barnes reports on this weekend's Open meet on Southampton Water

The Warming Pan weekend greeted us with a 10-20 knot breeze blowing down Southampton Water on Saturday. A nice start to the 2005 open circuit.

Race 1 got away at the first attempt with Matt Seale/ Dick Parker leading from the start. They were followed by Nils Jolliffe/Jonathon Branch second in boatracer.co.uk and with Mark Barnes/Phil Etherington in ReadyCrest third. On the first downwind leg ReadyCrest passed boatracer.co.uk. The order was maintained till the finish but with ReadyCrest taking a brief swim on the last downwind leg.

Race 2 started with several changes in the lead on the first beat with ReadyCrest and Searle/Parker rounding the top mark together. This was to be a race of getting the lay lines correct in the changing breeze and navigating through the slower traffic. The fleet stayed fairly close together with places changing between Searle/Parker, ReadyCrest and Boatracer.co.uk. At the finish Searle/Parker beat ReadyCrest by the narrowest of margins to lead overnight.

Sunday and 5 knots from the NW again. The race got away cleanly on a flood tide with the usual three protagonists, with Simon Hadley/Pete Nicholson and Jon Lobb/crew also mixing it at the front. The race turned in to a real snakes and ladders affair with all five taking the lead at times. With no discards till the fourth race it looked as if this one could go down to the wire as the breeze was dying. BoatRacer.co.uk was in the lead and winning overall on the last run only to have it all turned inside out with Lobb/crew taking a deserved lead. Lobb/crew won the race followed by Searle/David Cunningham (Sunday's crew), ReadyCrest then Hadley/Nicholson. Racing ended for the day and many boats were towed home.

1. Matt Seale/ Dick Parker 4 points
2. ReadyCrest 7 points
3. BoatRacer.co.uk 11 points