Lehl is last minute winner

There was plenty of close racing at the JPMorgan Asset Management Winter Challenge Series and Development Weekend

In the fifth JPMorgan Asset Management Winter Challenge Series (28-29 January), last minute entry Damien Lehl and his team went straight to the top, earning a place in the JPMorgan Winter Challenge Final 10-12 March.

Saturday brought windy conditions to Queen Mary Sailing Club, Staines, forcing teams to sail the RYA's J80s with one reef in the main and without their spinnakers.

With perfect match racing conditions on Sunday, Carsten Kemmling of Germany and Vincent Biarnes of France set off for the start line to decide who would finish in third and fourth. Biarnes won the first of two races clamining a third place finish for France.

Denmark's Dorte Jensen and France's Damien Lehl squared up against each other in the final. With three races to sail and a berth in the upcoming series final on the line, Lehl didn't let up on Jensen and took both races, promising to return in March to make his mark on the final.

This weekend 4-5 February saw the second of two RYA Match Racing Development weekends held for up and coming match racers in Great Britain. After a good battle the team of John Greenland, Tim Burnell, Rory Scott and Andy Clark were victorious.

With the wind struggling to get above five knots the organisers ran a round robin competition where all teams raced against each other once. The all girl team of Josie Gibson, Bird Watson, Fiona Lockwood, Rachel Larman and Ali Sutherland showed early form, winning all of their races on Saturday, as did John Greenland's team and Guy Brearey's team. However the light winds meant that only six of the 12 flights needed to complete the round robin were able to be sailed.

On Sunday the conditions were similar but the teams were finding their feet and the umpires had to issue several penalties. Team racer Rob Sherrington won the remainder of his races with Rob Grieg-Gran looking stronger. James Fox came into the frame, with Sam Pearson hot on his heels.

The critical match of the round robin was that between Josie Gibson and her team and John Greenland and his team. With the wind only at 2-3 knots the race started, Greenland took the early lead but Gibson managed to nip in at the leeward mark when the wind all but disappeared. Both teams went off to the right searching for wind and Greenland found enough to reach the windward mark first going on to take the win and the round robin.

With time running out the race committee decided to omit the normal semi-final stage and go on to first-second, third-fourth and fifth-sixth sail-offs.

Everyone anticipated a close final between Gibson and Greenland as both had sailed well over the weekend. However in the first match Greenland held Gibson out at the start and had a three boat length lead off the line from which he never looked back. In the second match Greenland again won the start and Gibson couldn't find a way back so in the end it was two easy victories for Greenland to take the title.

Results:

Winter Challenge Series Qualifier

1-Damien Lehl FRA
2-Dorte Jensen DEN
3-Vincent Biarnes FRA
4-Carsten Kemmling GER
5-Peter Wibroe DEN
6-Christian Hamilton GBR
7-Ian Southworth GBR
8-Josie Gibson GBR
9-Marek Stanczyk POL

Development Weekend

1-John Greenland
2-Josie Gibson
3-Rob Grieg-Gran
4-James Fox
5-Rob Sherrington
6-Sam Pearson
7-Guy Brearey
8-James Tilley
9-Ed Hill