Another one for Bundock

Team Power report from the F18 North Sea Challenge

With three British boats barely making a dent in the 49 boat fleet at the F18 North Sea Challenge, we greeted the warm sunny weather and (mostly) reliable sea breeze with vigour. With the wind and weather being so perfect the fleet rigged up quickly and got out on the water. It is amazing how time gets lost when you are three sail reaching out on trapeze with the sun on your face. Next thing we knew it was eight pm and we needed to get ourselves fed and watered. We had a lovely dinner on the edge of the beach watching the sun finally set, had a few drinks and retired for the evening

Saturday morning dawned bright with not a sight of a breeze anywhere. At the briefing at mid-day the sailing captain assured us a sea-breeze would come up and give us good racing for the afternoon. We were all a little dubious, but true to his word, just before the five minute signal went up the wind came through to a comfortable force three to four. With the front of the fleet ever changing there was always one consistency - Team Bundock and Ashby were out in front. Four quick races on Saturday saw the top ten changing positions constantly with positions two to four being separated by one point. Team Power had good results with one bad one thanks to a very inexperienced youth taking us out on the startline. Team Power finished the day with a third, leaving us fourth overall (top British team). Saturday night we had a great BBQ supplied free by the sponsor Murphy & Nye with plenty of food for all the hungry sailors.

Sunday saw another hot and windless morning with racing only starting at noon in the end due to lack of wind and rapid tide. The first race was interesting with the tide being stronger than the wind and swinging every direction imaginable, eventually forcing the race officer to shorten course. Tacking off after the start saw us just passing the front of the committee boat and then the tide and lack of wind took us a long way behind the start line by the time we were on the lay-line for the first windward mark. But the tide and wind had other ideas and those who had good starts and went to the right side of the course (being the side with less tide) ended up fighting a changing wind whereas those who had worse starts and did what would normally be wrong, sitting pretty at the front of the course.

The next three races saw the breeze freshen to Force three to four. Once again Team Bundock and Ashby showed us all around the course, even when he had a poor start. Team Power sailed an eighth and two seconds with us managing to hold off Darren Bundock in the last race until the last lap.

Once again, Team Power were top British Team holding off ex-Olympians and professionals.

Results:
1st Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby (AUS)
2nd Reinder-Jan van der Meulen and Carina Knol (NED)
3rd Vincent Huntelman and Herwin van der Kamp (NED)
4th James Power and Gillian Power (GBR)
5th Hugh Styles and Tom Peel (GBR)