Hickling Broad Sailing Club Phantom Open Meeting – 10th-11th October 2009-10-14
24 Phantoms competed in the HBSC Phantom open on Sat and Sun 10th and 11th Oct. The weather was overcast with sunny spells and an inconsistent and shifty westerly of between 10 and 15 knots. It was great to see so many boats attend from so far away as the South Coast and Newcastle despite the ominous forecast of 25 plus knots which fortunately failed to materialise on Sunday!
A testament to the extremely competitive nature of the fleet was that no one dominated the event. 6 races were sailed and there were 4 race winners spanning the first 5 places overall.
In the predominately lighter breeze on Saturday Richard Parkin from Hunts SC won races 1 and 2, followed by John Wayling from Northampton and James Case from Wells SC in race 1, and Simon Feilden from the home club and Wayling in race 2. Case finished what was looking like a winning run of results for Parkin in race 3 by finishing ahead of Daren Pike of Rollesby SC and Wayling, pushing Parkin down to 4th. All the way down the fleet, extremely close racing was taking place with much place changing and all to play for.
The fleet visited the pleasure Boat in Hickling for a fantastic meal on Sat evening and surprise surprise, everyone got rather drunk.
Sunday dawned with a bit more breeze and the heavier lads started to fancy their chances a little more. Case took race 4 from Tyler Harmsworth of Shoreham SC, and Parkin in 3rd. Feilden got away in race 5 and held on, followed by Harmsworth and Wayling, and in race 6 Harmsworth got the bullet ahead of Case and Parkin.
One or two other noteable performances should be mentioned… Doug Conway, having travelled down from Newcastle, continues to find spurts of boatspeed and is appearing in the mix more regularly than ever before which is great to see. Ian Sullivan, Lawrence (sorry, don’t know surname!) and Ben from Oulton Broad attended their first opens and although Ben was slightly damaged, Lawrence and Ian went well and were immediately in the pack.
So, the top 5…
1 – James (where’d he come from!)Case – Wells SC
2 – Richard (Damn, he’s still quick even though the wind got up!) Parkin – Hunts SC
3 – John (Last night a BJ saved his life) Wayling – Northampton SC
4 – Tyler (countback king) Harmsworth – Shoreham SC
5 – Simon (he SO thought I’d finally beaten Harmsworth)Feilden – Hickling Broad SC
Various prizes were awarded but many thanks to Boats and Bits in Norwich for their generous sponsorship, and again, thanks to Rod and Temperatech for the meal on Sat and to James Jarvey of JJ Boats for providing a spangling new centreboard and rudder blade for the lucky winners of the draw, Namely Nick Thorpe and John Wayling.
John was also crowned Phantom Eastern Series Champion (again!) so congratulations to him, and well done to James Jarvey in 2nd, James Case in 3rd, Chris Roberts in 4th, and El Presidente himself, Iain Miller in 5th.
