Light and shifty

The wind drops and the sun comes out for the Garmin Hamble Winter Series

The fourth Sunday of racing for the Garmin Hamble Winter Series took place in pleasant sunshine, but with only a light and fitful breeze.

After a short delay to allow the wind to settle, racing began in the two designated areas of the Solent for the White and Black Fleets, with the northerly breeze building promisingly towards 10 knots. However, as the forecasts had predicted, it was not to last, and the competitors had to draw on tactical skills they had not needed previously in the series. Finding the breeze was of paramount importance, and making best use of the tide was also vital.

Maintaining consistency in such conditions is particularly difficult in large fleets, especially when the races are shorter in distance, as is the case for the classes in the White Fleet, so perhaps it should not be too much of a surprise that the previously almost unbeatable Laser SB3 Gul of Mike Budd and Russell Peters at last had a wobble in the first race of the day, and only managed fourteenth. As in the first race last week, James Fox brought Monex home in first place, but Gul struck back with yet another victory in the second race and holds a big lead overall after eight races in this highly competitive class.

In the other White Fleet classes the leading positions have been more evenly distributed to date, with the exception of the SBR Sportsboat class where Boats.com the 1720 of Ian Atkins has now secured six consecutive victories after missing the first two races of the series.



Among the nine Black Fleet classes, the only perfect score of four straight wins belongs to the Meakins Family sailing Festina Lente in the Sigma 38 class, with Richard and Valerie Griffith's  Cerefe closest to them in the Sigma 33 class. Other notable performances at this stage include those of the two J/133s Jammy Dodger and Jump of Neil Martin and Stewart Hawthorn in the IRC 1 class, the J/92S of Marie-Claude and Paul Heys in IRC3, and G. Fairhall's Corby 25 in IRC  4. Also separated by a single point at the top of IRC 2 are Thorkild Junker's X-35 Cool Runnings and Peter Rutter's Elan 37 Quokka.

Prizes for the day's racing were donated by the Quantum Sail Design Group.

After four weeks of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series we have now reached the halfway stage, and next weekend will see a charity pursuit race in aid of John Merrick's Trust, the Hamble Inshore Lifeboat and Sail-for-Cancer, before the remaining four weeks of the series.

Results:

Garmin Hamble Winter Series, Week 4, White Fleet Race Winners:

Laser SB3 Race 1, "Monex" James Howells. Race 2, "Gul" Mike Budd & Russell Peters
J80 Races 1 & 2, "Jevan" Robert & Jonathan Fox
Hunter 707 Race 1, "Surfeit" Mike Foster. Race 2, "Feeling Rough" Andrew Baird
SBR Sportsboats Races 1 & 2 "Boats.com" Ian Atkins.

Garmin Hamble Winter Series, Week 4, Black Fleet Race Winners:

IRC 0 "Windsong" Stuart Brown
IRC 1 "Circus" Andrew Webster
IRC 2 "Cool Runnings" Thorkild Junker
IRC 3 "Java Lite" Marie-Claude & Paul Heys
IRC 4 "Funtastic 2" Glyn Deakin
J105 "Juliette" Rod Knowles
J109 "Shiva" Matthew Boyle
Sigma 33 "Cerefe" Richard & Valerie Griffith
Sigma 38 "Festina Lente" Meakins Family

For full results in all classes, along with much more information visit the event web site htpp://www.garminhamblewinterseries.co.uk/