Laser South Coast Grand Prix at Bosham and Emsworth
by Ian Payne 23 Jul 2013 12:54 UTC
20-21 July 2013
The Laser South Coast Grand Prix held two events in Chichester Harbour over the weekend. Bosham Sailing Club hosted Saturdays open meeting and Emsworth Sailing Club was on Sunday. The venues proved popular with the best turnouts of the year, with over forty competitors at each event.
Bosham Sailing Club
Bosham was blessed with a strong north-easterly, and a strong ebb tide, the only way up the beat was to hit the bank on the far right, sometimes literally.
In the Standard fleet Jim Fifield (Queen Mary) using his local knowledge of the harbour was on form with two first places to take victory from Ian Morgan (Hill Head) and Billy Miness (Stokes Bay).
In the twenty three strong Radial fleet, Matthew Stephens won with two firsts, second was Geoffrey Sherwood (Hayling Island), and Niall Houston (Hayling Island) was third. The three 4.7's had a good battle with each sailor taking a race win.
Liz Sherwood (Hayling Island) and Dominic Clark (Bosham) were equal on points, both counting a first and a second. Dominic took the victory on the tie breaker. Alexander Lee (Arun) was third.
Emsworth Sailing Club
Emsworth Sailing Club held Sunday's racing. The wind was once again from the North-East and veering East at times, but on Sunday the wind speed was much less. With the early published start time everybody was eager to get going, competitors arrived in good time for the prompt 1030 start. With all fleets starting together and combined with the short start line, the competitors were too eager to get going and there were several postponed or recalled starts through-out the days racing. The mark rounds also proved exciting, especially at the wing mark and the leeward mark as many competitors appeared to have forgotten the racing rules, either by failing with give mark room to the boats on the inside, or by barging in without gaining an overlap before three boat length distance. With collision aplenty it felt like been on the bumper cars at the fairground.
After the racing the results were separated out. In the standards, some new faces appeared at the front, Richie Bailey (Hayling Island) won, with Andy Palmer-Felgate (Chichester) second and Neil Crossourd (Hill Head) third. In the Radials, Niall Houston (Hayling Island) won from Ian Gregory (Frensham Pond) and with Matthew Stephens (Burghfield) third. The 4.7 winner was Liz Sherwood (Hayling Island).
The current leaders of the series are Ian Morgan, Ian Payne and Simon Radford in the standard fleet. In the Radial, Kerry Morgan still leads from Ross Mackley and Alexander Lee.
Full results can be view on the Rooster Sailing website.
Next weekend the Laser South Coast Grand Prix circuit heads back to Christchurch Harbour for Mudeford Sailing Club's Open Meeting. This is a small, but friendly club and the sailing is in the harbour. See Mudeford Sailing Club's website or contact Mike Roach.
The Laser South Coast Grand Prix is sponsored by Rooster Sailing and Wildwind Sailing Holidays.