SB3 action a plenty

Mixed conditions for Henri Lloyd Eurocup in Lymington

Emotions ranging from ecstasy to despair and back were felt at the SB3's latest Henri-Lloyd sponsored Eurocup at Lymington, an event most notable for the amount of carnage on the racetrack, pretty well matched by the carnage onshore afterwards!

Yet again Chris Blackburn stuck a rock star newbie, John Date, in the back of his works lasersailing.com who promptly made the often heard "it's time in the boat that counts" sound a bit lame, as he blitzed the old guard with 2,2,1,4,1, to take first place with 6 points.

Glenn Bourke weighed in with a world record heaviest crew ever, maxi boat Alfa Romeo pro 'Cedric', along with Andrew Cape, and nearly broke the nice shiny new weighing scales. As a result he started day two with 72 points. Not even he could close that gap, and his two second places on Sunday were only enough to get 11th overall, but enough to win the Silver fleet (boats only scoring in 2 races).

The ‘Boys from the North’ were fast, but overexerted themselves a few times and counted some DNFs.

Winner of the bronze fleet (boats only scoring in one race) and first woman helmsman was Mini Summerhayes, with a 7th in race 4, managing to demolish 2 kites in the process. She and sister CC, rated by many (actually Mini) as the second best SB3 female crewmanwoman in the world, now head off to Garda for the Laser 4000 event and one wonders will they bother to race at all! The Class really is crying out for some female talent to take over Mini’s mantle of Worlds Top Female Laser SB3 helmsmanwoman - perhaps Shirley Robertson will join the family after racing in an SB3 in next weekends Round Island Race.

Jerry Hill got 2nd overall (boats scoring 4 or more races) with new Sad Old Bloke Mark Richards in the middle.After some poor starts, appalling upwind form but blistering downwind speed, they was able to string together a set of top four 3 results.

Colin Simonds with brother Gavin pulling some strings came 3rd. Worth noting these chaps had a probable average crew age over 65 and really showed how much fun you can have in an SB3 at 20knots regardless of your years. Gavin was quoted later as saying he didn’t want to take the kite down at 18 knots, not due to fear, just that he wanted to sail all the way to Seaview such was the hoot he was having!

Chairman Dave Evans surprised only himself with a storming 4th, with local boys Charles Nicholson (Henri de B driving) 5th, and Dominic May (thanks to his team at Berthons for looking after everyone – tremendous) also from Lymington took 6th, showing the Limmies have really come on since their recent outing to Brest.

What of the Irish? They received three beautiful yellow Henri-Lloyd trimmer jackets for dragging the PRO boat by the anchor chain 200 yards off station, hitting it 3 times on the port side, and then with the assistance of the safety boat managed to get round the other side and whacked it twice in reverse and once in forward on the starboard side, skipper Dave Cheyne felt they had done rather well, and promises to repeat the performance at the next event.

All in all it was a rather testing weekend for the new boys in the fleet, with winds of anything from 0 knots in race 4 and a torrential thunderstorm, to 30 knots in the final race, with boats hitting 20 knots down the last run being subjected to a 30 right hand shift with little change in wind speed over about 400 metre – tricky if you didn’t see it coming! Fair play to the PRO team who did a terrific job in winds that rarely came from the same quadrant for more than 20 seconds.

Thanks to all in the Royal Lymington for all their effort, making the fleet most welcome and we hope this will be a regular annual event. To Henri-Lloyd as ever for some terrific prizes and free booze on Saturday night, and thanks also from the Irish, to the team of thirty or so volunteers who looked after the lost sheep for the weekend.

Next Friday the fleet welcomes the Olympic Squad for a 2-3 race series to be held out of Cowes prior to the RTI Race on Saturday, where 20-25 SB3s are expected to take part. Ben Ainslie, Steve Mitchell, Shirley Robertson and Ian Percy will each have an SB3 for the event.

		Helm	Points	Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Race 4	Race 5
1	LaserSailing.com	John Date	6	2	2	1	4	1
2	3 Sad Old Blokes	Jerry Hill	11	4	1	3	24	3
3	Doolali	Colin Simonds	14	3	5	6	1	5
4	Distinctly Minty	David Evans	18	8	6	2	6	4
5	The Snitch	Charles Nicholson	27	6	7	5	14	9
6	Derision III	Dominic May	30	9	8	7	15	6
7	Baby Blue	Jon Shelley	31	1	3	24	3	24
8	Stress Bunny	Peter Harrison	44	5	24	4	11	24
9	Hooligan	Allen Vince	45	7	4	24	10	24
10	Mr Skiddy	Dave Cheyne	47	11	24	24	5	7
11	Musto	Glenn Bourke	52	24	24	24	2	2
12	Boo	Chris Hewitt	53	13	24	24	8	8
13	Skallywag	Jason Ludlow	55	12	24	24	9	10
14	Bish Bash Bosh	Roger Hexton	61	10	24	24	16	11
15	Mutt's Nuts	Richard Hill/Nick Stuart	74	14	24	24	12	24
16	Short and Curlies	Mini Summerhayes	79	24	24	24	7	24
17	WoosterStock	Luke Wooster	80	24	24	8	24	24
18	Shagadelic Baby	Mike Flood	81	24	9	24	24	24
19	Red Kite	Roger Harford	85	24	24	24	13	24
20	Oneironaut	Piers Thomas	89	24	24	24	17	24
21	Lets Be Free	Ray Nash	96	24	24	24	24	24
21	Spank the Monkey	Matt Johnston	96	24	24	24	24	24
21	Senbaram	Donald Edgar	96	24	24	24	24	24