The event was close to cancellation with the weather the previous night. I live an hour away and by 7pm in the evening before, it started snowing and by 10pm we had 2 inches of snow at least. The roads were white and there was enough snow to build significant snow men. The good news was a rapid thaw forecast in the morning. When I woke up at 6.45am the temperature was 5 degrees and when I got into my car an hour later it was 11. Unfortunately the bad weather stopped some of the long distance travellers as the thaw had not got to the midlands. The only downside of the thaw was the fllding but thankfully that did not affect our travel. In the end 17 hardy souls made it to Hampton Court.
Hampton Court Model Yacht Club run this charity event every year and it Kicks the year off with some nice competition although we missed the likes of Peter and Oliver Stollery and Darin Ballington who were regular visitors in the past.
We prepared our boats in the club house sheltering from the rain and after a wet briefing from our PRO we set forth to race. The forecast was 12 gusting mid 20's so the supposed wise heads put up there B rigs. Some even wiser heads new better an put up the big rigs. The fleet was split into two and B rigs dominated the first seeding race although Martin Wilson spilt the B rigs of Barrow and Richards. In the second, Steve Cockerill showed the fleet a clean pair of heals with his A rig. No nose diving.
After much deliberation and expectation of the wind building the B riggers elected to persist. Steve Cockerill again won his heat but suffered the misfortune of a broken jib boom and not able to source a spare, persisted with a B rig for the day in A rig conditions.
After race 2 the RO announced we would sail as one fleet and the battle began for the podium places. After 5 races at lunch the scores were
Craig Richards 8 Nemesis
David Lindsay 8 Proteus
Nigel Barrow 9 Proteus
Each shared a win or two
All three were sailing Craig's new designs. The Proteus is an enhancement of his original Chimera design, and the Nemesis an experimental lighter weather design being much narrower on the waterline. I believe that the line has been crossed where 3D printed boats can be as competitive as epoxy glass. You can build with care, a 3D printed boat with a layer of glass and add nearly 300gms of correctors. They are as stiff or stiffer than epoxy glass and as light in the ends and with the Polymax PLA they are more robust, able to survive significant impacts.
In the afternoon, getting off the heavily port bias start line proved to be a challenge and I was over the line twice. I opened my account with two bullets and followed up with 3rd, two 2nds and another bullet which sealed the win. Craig finished second and to be fair the Proteus had a downwind advantage over the Nemesis so the result was not a true reflection of Craig's skill. In addition, weed affected him badly in a couple of the races. David had a coule of slip ups and counting a tenth took him out of the running for a win.
Jim La Roche finished forth and was always threatening for the race podiums. David Lapes, a relative newcomer to the game finished an impressive 5th and a very competitive home built Alioth. The Emsworth team packed the next few places and at least one of them will be booking an appointment at specsavers as he kept turning early at the right hand leeward gate. I can sympathise as I did exactly the same. It was good to see my original Britpop out on the water with Malcolm Stewart and Rob Andrews from Gosport who I used to race 470's once upon a time. There are some highly skilled sailors in this event with good pedigree and it is only a matter of time before they shine.
We were lucky to have the wind straight down Rick Pond which enabled great racing all day. As the day progressed we learned that the wind was stronger on the north side of the pond than the south so despite being a port bias line, if one started in the middle of the line and could tack early, by sailing fast you nearly always found your self at the front of the fleet whilst others struggled to tack onto port away from the approaching bank. Similarly on the run, if you chose the north shore, you always made significant gains.
My thanks to the Hampton Court Model Yacht Club organisers and race team. You did an outstanding job in inclement weather.
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