F18 Inlands

Hugh Styles reports on the action at Grafham Water

Grafham Water Sailing Club played host to the combined catamaran regatta, which included the Formula 18 Inlands. This was the last F18 event of the year and proved to be a nail-biting event.

Saturday dawned a little overcast, with fresh South Westerly winds. This proved to be a very shifty wind direction with 30 to 40 degree wind shifts and lots of difference in wind strength. There was plenty of traffic on the racecourse with single-handed cats, then F18, Spitfire and a general Handicap fleet all racing the same course.

Race one with the wind in the left saw the Worthing team of Leo Farrow and Ricky Cheesman come firing out of that side of the course taking the lead at mark one. There were constant attacks from the chasing boats of Tom Phipps and John Cook and Hugh Styles and Tom Peel, but the Worthing team held out to win.

Race two was close fought up the first beat, and any one of 5 boats were in contention at mark one. Hugh and Tom made the best of the melee taking the lead on the downwind. They extended away from the fleet as the breeze increased, to win by a comfortable margin.

Race three saw Styles and Peel dominate from the port end of the start line. They hooked into the best band of wind on the left side of the course using this to lead at the windward mark. By this stage the wind had increased and the gusts made the lay line into the leeward marks tricky to judge, too much enthusiasm and one would overlay and struggle to keep the boat on track. Team Styles and Peel revelled in these conditions extending their lead, finally winning by a margin of minutes.

The big breeze, which was forecast for Sunday never materialised and with the direction South Westerly, racing began in 10 knots. Big shifts were again prevalent and Leo Farrow gained the best from these, taking the lead, contested by Styles and Peel, but gear failure took them out of the challenge for the lead.

Things were much different in race 5 with the first beat really taking its toll on some teams. Allowing the first 5 boats to get away, the lead changed a number of times but Grant Piggott won it from Will Sunnucks and then Leo Farrow. The last race of the day was a light wind affair, Jonathan Worthington took an early lead and was never headed, but a close battle was fought between Gunnar Larsen and Styles and Peel, who just couldn’t quite get past the Dutch man at the finish.

The overall finishing positions were: 1st Leo Farrow, 2nd Styles and 3rd Tom Phipps.

This is the last of the F18 events for the season. Next on the agenda are the F18 World Championships in Australia in February, near Brisbane.

For us in our Tornado campaign we wiill be off to Argentina in a couple of weeks for preparations before the Olympic Class Tornado Catamaran Worlds.

Many thanks to all for the great encouragement we have received through the course of the year. In addition much thanks should also go out to all the sponsors: Fat Face, Garmin, Gill, Hobie Cat Europe, Holt Performance Hardware, Marlow Ropes, Red Insurance, Tacktick.