Rookie wins

Base 1 took victory in the first UK 18ft Skiff Grand Prix of the season

Base 1, sailed by ‘rookie’ 18 ft skiff helm Ian Turnbull, sailing for this season with the boat’s regular crew of Paul Constable and Alec Mckinlay made a strong start in the 2007 UK Grand Prix series for 18ft skiffs, winning round one at Draycote Water last weekend. An experienced 18 crew and successful MPS and International 14 helm, Ian had only spent a couple of hours at the helm of an 18 before the weekend.

The event, which was shared with 49ers, 29ers and the UK’s first 12ft skiffs, was sailed in moderate to light but shifty winds over the traditional short windward leeward courses. Tacking and gybing through the fleets of slower boats made life interesting at times for the crews, especially with the very different gybe angles of the boats concerned. However, to everyone’s credit, the weekend passed without incident.

On Saturday Base 1 got off to a strong start, taking bullets in the first two races of the day in tricky conditions with the wind shifting unpredictably with strong broken gusts off the clubhouse shore. Ed Browne, Mark Addison and Graeme Oliver on Wet & Wild (formerly SELS) looking very bright in their new green paint job and new generation North square top 3DL rig sailed very consistently to take second in the first two races and first in the final race of the day to end the day tied on points at the top of the leader board.

Both leaders gave themselves plenty to do on the Sunday, by completely missing the first start (what do you mean they’re starting on time!). Initially it was Hurley Palmer Flatt, with stand in helm Michael McKensey, Sandy Wright and Adam Kaczor Warry who took advantage of this laid back behaviour and led for most of the race before being overhauled by James Mears, Stewart Meers and M Gill on PICA.

Pica looked like taking up where they left off in race five rounding the first windward mark ahead. However, the Base 1 team worked their way up from third and engaged Pica in a race long tacking and gybing match, with never more than a couple of boat lengths separating the two for the entire race. Pica kept a close cover on Base 1 and looked to have the race in the bag but on the final run the red boat slipped inside Pica to take up a controlling position on the final gybe for the finish and took the bullet.

This match race was repeated in the final race, but in the now fading breeze no passing lanes opened up and Pica were able to secure their second bullet, ending the day with a very strong one, two, one score line and with it second place in the event ahead of SELS.

Results:

Pos	Boat	R1	R2	R	R4	R5	R6	Tot
1	Base 1	1	1	3	DNS	1	2	8
2	Pica	3	4	2	1	2	1	9
3	SELS	2	2	1	DNS	3	3	11
4	Hurley Palmer Flatt	5	3	4	2	4	4	17
5	GBR 37	4	5	5	3	5	5	22