Home win

Hill takes VW Touareg SB3 Grand Prix in West Mersea

It was champagne sailing in the River Blackwater on the East coast this weekend for the third Volkswagen Touareg Laser SB3 Grand Prix hosted by West Mersea Yacht Club.

Near perfect conditions greeted the sailors on Saturday with enough breeze to put the fast and furious sportsboats through their paces along the Mersea shore packed with people enjoying the first hot and sunny weekend of the summer.

The conditions suited Geoff Carveth on Small But Steamy who finished the day with three firsts and a second ahead of Jon Shelley ( Price Waterhouse Coopers) and Jerry Hill at the helm of Team Touareg.

Hamble-based Hill learnt to sail in the River Blackwater and was hoping for a regatta win in his old haunting ground as was local boat Complete Madness (Paul Harrison and Chris Pugh) who began the weekend holding a top ten position in the Grand Prix series. They notched up a third and fifth place on Saturday finishing the day in 5th position.

On day two, light winds and a strong tide tested the sailors with Dan Geoghegan putting in a sound performance to claim two seconds and Mersea’s James Struth ( Squat Thrust) claiming a third and fifth. It wasn’t enough, however, to beat Complete Madness who, despite having to do penalty turns in the light and flukey Race 5, finished consistently in the top ten and 7th overall.

The day belonged to Team Touareg and Hill who sailed through a struggling cluster of boats in the light winds and strong foul tide at the first mark to win Race 5. Carveth couldn’t equal his day one performance and finished five points behind Hill, one point ahead of Shelley.

Thanking the West Mersea event team, Hill said the River Blackwater was under valued as a race venue. “This is the third national sportsboat event I’ve competed in at Mersea in as many years and they just get better and better. The sailing conditions are fantastic, the boat handling and onshore support are exceptional,” he said. “If you were to invite the Laser SB3 class here for another championship event, we’d jump at the offer.”

The fourth and final event in the Volkswagen Touareg Laser SB3 Grand Prix series is at the Royal Southern Yacht Club on the 1st and 2nd of July.

Provisional results:

			R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Nett
1	Team Touareg	Jeremy Hill	2	1	4	4	1	-8	12
2	Small But Steamy	Geoff Carveth	1	2	1	1	12	-14	17
3	PWC	Jon Shelley	5	5	3	2	(23.0 OCS)	3	18
4	Another Naked Blond	Daniel Geoghegan	-7	4	6	5	2	2	19
5	TRAXU.com	Mark Richards	6	-11	9	6	6	1	28
6	Badger Racing	Paul Lovejoy	(23.0 DNF)	6	2	3	9	10	30
7	Complete Madness	Harrison/Pugh	9	3	5	-10	8	9	34
8	Kelpie	French/Hunter/Glasgow	4	12	12	11	-14	4	43
9	Bish Bash Bosh	Roger Hexton	3	10	11	9	11	-12	44
10	Squat Thrust	James Struth	8	-17	16	14	3	5	46
11	Hooligan	Nick Glanvill	13	8	7	8	13	-16	49
12	Virtual Human Resources	Danny Brooks	11	7	8	18	(23.0 OCS)	7	51
13	Rascal	Ian Sullivan	12	9	(23.0 OCS)	7	7	19	54
14	Finator 7	Reed/Maudsley	15	13	10	12	10	(23.0 DNF)	60
15	Hobgoblin	Chris Harris	-17	15	17	17	4	11	64
16	Striptease	Venetia Wingfield	10	19	14	19	(23.0 OCS)	6	68
17	Laser Sailing	James Lund-Lack	(23.0 DNF)	21	13	16	5	13	68
18	Barbarian	Mike Taylor	14	14	-15	13	15	15	71
19	Betty Swollocks	Josh Warren	16	16	(23.0 DNF)	15	18	17	82
20	Team JVC	Oli Southgate	18	20	18	-21	17	18	91
21	Make Me Smile	Bob King	19	18	19	-20	16	20	92

Find out more on the SB3 on their class website here