Win for Otter's Werewolf

Eddie Mays reports on the Hamble Big Boat Series

Even though Jerry Otter had an eight point lead going into the last day's racing in the 45 ft class the other places on the rostrum were wide open. So it was unfortunate that four boats were called OCS in the first race. The fleet stayed close together up the first beat but by the time they approached the leeward mark Werewolf had a clear lead ahead of Rebel (David Franks & Duncan Morris) and Shockwave (Nick Lutte). Fidessa Fastwave (Chris Brown & Peter Harding) was a couple of boats back but then had a better second lap to finish in fourth place. There were also two OCS calls in the 40 ft class, one of them the series leader Victric, but both returned and started correctly. However Farrfarina (Rob Goddard) had made the most of his opportunity and led Creative Play (Fenton Burgin) around the whole course. Victric caught up to third by the finish.



The second race of the day was held after the main starting sequence for the Winter Series and provided the closest racing. After an hour's racing Fidessa Fastwave reached the line two secs ahead of Werewolf with Rebel another 20 secs behind. So overall victory went to Jerry Otter in his Farr 45, Chris Brown's DK46 was second and another Farr 45 (David Franks) third. It would have been interesting to see if these positions would have changed if the leading Swan 45, Mischa Mouratov's Murka 2 had been able to compete on the second weekend. In the smaller class Victric returned to winning form for the last race but Farrfarina held off Creative Play to finish second but couldn't catch her in the overall table.

For those with a morbid interest in the various rating systems (marine anoraks) the Hamble Winter Series website ( http://www.hamblewinterseries.com) has extra calculations of results showing how the boats would have scored under both the IRC and IRM systems.

45 ft Level Rated
1st Werewolf Farr 45 Jerry Otter 11 pts
2nd Fidessa Fastwave DK 46 Chris Brown & Peter Harding 21 pts
3rd Rebel Farr 45 David Franks & Duncan Morris 25 pts
4th Shockwave DK 46 Nick Lutte 29 pts

40 ft Level Rated
1st Victric 5 Farr 40 Tony de Mulder 11 pts
2nd Creative Play Farr 40 Fenton Burgin 12 pts
3rd Cadhire Farrfarina Farr 40 Rob Goddard 22 pts