Spring opener goes to Craig/Lewis

A report from last weekend's B14 racing on Rutland Water

Tuesday March 24th 2009, Author: Mark Watts/Nick Craig, Location: United Kingdom
With the B14 container only arriving back from the Worlds trip to Tasmania the day before the event, several teams condensed a lot of boat unpacking and rigging into 18 hours to be rearing to go for the first event of the domestic season. They were rewarded with excellent conditions with the wind obediently starting light and increasing throughout the weekend, with lots of sunshine, a fantastic race officer and raucous social!

Saturdays sailing was very shifty with the corners often paying and leading round the windward mark often being a disaster as the wind filled in from behind! Light air gurus the Anthill Mob (Tim Harrison/Jonny Radcliffe) opened with a big win and showed good speed to score 1,4,1,4. Team Gill (Nick Craig/Toby Lewis) and Simmons&Simmons (Mark Watts/George Morris) just about got away with playing the middle of the course to score 2,3,3,1 and 3,2,7,3. Dynamic Sails (Dave Dobrojivec/Phil Eltingham) found some great shifts to score 5,1,4,2 but took a 3 point penalty for an infringement in the last race. This left these 4 very tight on points overnight with all to play for with another 4 short, adrenaline packed races planned for Sunday.

Youngsters Seavolution 2 (Will McGrath/Harry Reece) showed great potential in their new boat to score a 2nd in race 3. Sailsport (Tony Blackmore/Char Jones) and Chattanooga Cho Cho (Dan Cowin/Rachel Bennett) also had turns leading the fleet.

After packing in a lot of sailing into 3 hours, the B14 sailors then packed in a lot of wine to an evening social with several wine waves for no apparent reason! Very few even made it to closing time in one piece, most were thankful that the Rutland bunk beds are only a short stagger from the pub!

Sunday was even better with a force 2 increasing to 4 by the last race with brilliant sunshine, summer is here! Team Gill opened with a 1,2 to put the event in reach with Simmons&Simmons just behind in 2,3. The Anthill Mob and Dynamic Sails were a little rustier in the breeze and scored 4,7 and 5,11 to make it a two horse race.

B14 class legends Seavolution 1 (Mark Barnes/Pete Nicholson) arrived in their new boat and scored 3,1, despite it being slower than their old boat.

Simmons&Simmons made their intentions clear by leading race 7 from start to finish but Team Gill pulled through to 2nd only to trawl their kite and finish 7th opening the event up. Seavolution 1 just led the chasing pack from the Anthill Mob and Dynamic Sails.

Team Gill won the start of the last race to take the win and event with Simmons&Simmons and the Anthill Mob finishing in 2nd & 3rd to consolidate those positions overall.

After a great weekends racing, the class are looking forward to King George in 2 weeks time.

Results:
 
Pos Helm Crew Team R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 Tot Net
1 Nick Craig Toby Lewis Team Gill 2 3 3 1 1 2 -7 1 20 13
2 Mark Watts George Morris Simmmons&Simmons 3 2 -7 3 2 3 1 2 23 16
3 Tim Harrison Jonny Ratcliffe Anthill Mob 1 4 1 4 4 -7 3 3 27 20
4 Dave Dobrijevic Phil Eltringham Dynamic Sails 5 1 4 5 SCP 5 11 4 (DNC) 50 35
5 Will McGrath Harry Reece Seavolution 2 6 5 2 5 6 5 6 (DNC) 50 35
6 Philip Murray Kev Rutherford Dryshirt 4 6 9 7 -11 6 5 5 53 42
7 Rhys Triffitt Simon Reynolds-Jones 7 -10 5 9 9 4 9 7 60 50
8 Tony Blackmore Charlotte Jones Sailsport -10 8 6 8 7 8 8 6 61 51
9 Mark Barnes Pete Nicholson Seavolution 1 (DNC) DNC DNC DNC 3 1 2 4 70 55
10 Daniel Cowin Rachel Bennett Chattanooga Cho Cho 8 7 8 6 10 9 (DNC) DNC 78 63
11 Ed Streeter Peter Halswell 9 9 10 10 12 (DNC) 10 DNC 90 75

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