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Sailing: Dawber stays on dry land - but still wins
There's exciting racing action from Dell Quay, Felpham, Bosham and Wittering sailing clubs in our latest round-up.
DELL QUAY
A weekend of energetic activity saw the completion of two of Dell Quay Sailing Club's 2009 events.
At the front in the junior main series, Ben Hoddy had the better of Sam Denyer, both sailing Lasers.
Saturday was definitely a day for 4.7 rigs, with a strong and gusty
south-westerly and squally rain, and Hoddy added first places in each of the day's four races to take the series with minimum points.
Though the junior results were separated from the adults' short-race series, Hoddy battled all round the course each time with Malcolm Buchanan (Solo) and beat him on corrected time in three of four finishes.
In the short race series, Bill Dawber (Solo) had already secured victory with a near-perfect score from his best seven of the 12 races, and he didn't compete.
Way fastest on the water and on corrected time were Ryan Buchanan and Hannah Burke (Scorpion), but as visitors, their results couldn't count for the series, so father Malcolm added four firsts to take second place overall.
Third in the series was Bruce Dupee, who kept close enough to the leaders in his Mirror to take a second and third on handicap.
Three seconds for Chris Turner (Solo) lifted him to fifth overall, just behind Andrew Spiers and Ron Sanders (Laser 2000).
Sunday saw the sunshine return, but with an even stronger wind, a force five gusting six, the number racing was somewhat depleted.
Bill and Charlotte Dawber dominated both the Laser 2000 races, with Mike Fitzgerald and Tim Dormer taking second place each time.
The Laser/Solo fleet saw close racing, with Roger Puttock in his Solo 'giving away' the win in the Crown race by rounding the final mark instead of crossing the line, gifting first place to Gordon Barclay in another Solo.
Puttock managed only third as the time he took to return to the finish allowed Chris West to come through in his Laser to take second. In the Anchor race, Puttock made amends and completed the victory, with Andy Gray, again in a Solo, second, followed by Barclay.
The Handicap fleet managed only one race, with Buchanan and Burke
completing a victory over Chris Rhodes and Chris Lynas (Wayfarer).
FELPHAM
Felpham SC continued their Capstan series of races, generally considered to be the most competitive of all the series at the club.
Race officer Bob May set a running start line with a square course in the Westerly light breeze.
The fleet were too keen at the start and three boats were over the start line and disqualified because they didn't go back.
Luke Mapley (Laser radial) was able to get a great start and led at the leeward mark.
owever, after their recent excellent performance at the Vago Sea Nationals, Richard and Abigail Bentley were on a high and used their spinnaker well to ease into second.
Andy Farrer is sailing very well in these light conditions and with other Blazes disqualified he took a comfortable win.
Conditions on Sunday were completely different with a strong westerly breeze that continued to build over the two races.
The younger racers were as keen as ever to get to sea in these difficult conditions.
Lewis Powell, James Mapley and Martin Jones found the going difficult but they managed to get round the course despite several capsizes.
In the first race, Peter Jones (Blaze) got in front of Ross Fisher (Blaze) to take first and second places.
Matt Burnett held off strong opposition from Catherine Davies, both in Picos, to take third and fourth.
In the second race Jones took the win with Fisher just behind. This time Davies took third with Mapley (Topper) coping with the deteriorating conditions really well to get fourth.
HARBOUR CHALLENGE
It was the sort of day when the temptation was to sit at home and watch the qualifying laps of the German Grand Prix: low grey clouds and an
uncomfortable wind blowing in the rain.
But it was the day of the annual race between two harbour clubs, West Wittering and Bosham, so duty called: every boat was needed.
The Harbour Challenge used to be a race Bosham won routinely, but West Wittering have won for the past two years so Bosham put out a strong fleet to try to put that right.
However in the fast class, WW's Olli Woods, crewed by his father Adrian, went round the course like an Express train in their RS800.
The only thing that was going to stop them in these conditions was a capsize, but they kept the boat in control and finished ten minutes ahead of Bosham's Luke South in his RS300, winning the race on handicap by four minutes. Third was Wittering's Robin Smith in a Laser 2000.
In the classic dayboat class, racing was tighter, but still Wittering came out on top with club vice-commodore John Gregory, crewed by club commodore Peter Woods, winning in a Devon Yawl.
Wittering's Ann Carnegie was second, one minute behind, and Bosham's Francis Boff, also in a Devon Yawl, was another thirty seconds behind.
When the times were added up, West Wittering were convincing winners and left Bosham determined to avenge three defeats in a row next year.
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Weather for Chichester
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South west
