A small but hardy group of six boats enjoyed fantastic sailing at Waveney & Oulton Broad Yacht Club for two days of close racing. Three races back to back each day in strong gusting conditions tested mind and body and certainly left everybody with the usual 'phantom grin' with every gust.

The triangular courses for day one offered place changes throughout every race. Race one set the tone as every small mistake or gust kept the leaderboard constantly changing. Going into the last mark it was Matthew House leading the way with local Ben Falat close behind and just ahead of the rest. A misjudgement from Ben in his rounding resulted in a capsize allowing the fleet to get passed with Nick Favell taking second and John Wayling third.

With helms learning from the first race the first couple of legs of Race two proved very close until Matthew dipped his boom at the gybe mark giving the rest hope that he would not repeat his race one win. However that was not to be and Matthew's determination dragged him back into contention finally getting past Ben and John in the final stages.

Race three finished off the first day with another tight race which would have given the hatrick of race wins to Matthew except for a misunderstanding on the last leg for which he retired after finishing ultimately proving pivotal to the weekends points. Ben took the race win in front of John and Nick. John took a small lead into Sunday but all was to play for once the discard kicked in.

The evenings meal and entertainment was punctuated by the phrase "its ok the forecast is for less wind tomorrow" which offered some solace to tired legs and helped ease the elbow at the bar.

The weather didn't quite play ball and the fleet arrived to the same gusting conditions from the previous day. The sun did however return which was a very welcome sight given the last three months. There was even an unconfirmed sighting of a bottle of sun tan lotion but this is only a rumour....

Sundays races mirrored the previous days snakes and ladders with regular place changes aided by Matthew revisiting the exact spot of the previous days capsize for another one in race four, again recovering well but this time falling just short from being able to catch Ben and John.

Race five saw the best start of the weekend from Nick (sail number 1264 in the photo above) who comfortably port tacked the fleet to lead well up the first beat. As the race progressed Ben took control of the event piping Matthew and Nick to the race win.

Needing only a solid last race Ben took a clean sweep for the day to give him a well deserved open victory with Matthew second. Third place overall went to Nick thanks to his second in the last race given that he had the same number of seconds, thirds and fourths as John.

The fleet thanked the host club for a great weekends sun and sailing and now move on to Southwold for the next Eastern event over the weekend of 4 and 5 August.

 

WOBYC Phantom Open Meerting 2012

Overall

Sailed: 6, Discards: 1, To count: 5, Entries: 6, Scoring system: Appendix A
Rank Boat SailNo HelmName Club R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Total Nett
1st 1359 Ben Falat WOBYC (7.0 DNF) 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 13.0 6.0
2nd 1355 Matthew House Royal Harwich YC 1.0 1.0 (7.0 RAF) 3.0 2.0 3.0 17.0 10.0
3rd 1264 Nick Favell WOBYC 2.0 (7.0 DNF) 3.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 21.0 14.0
4th 1175 John Wayling Northampton SC 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 (4.0) 4.0 18.0 14.0
5th 1404 Ian Sullivan 4.0 4.0 4.0 5.0 (7.0 DNS) 7.0 DNS 31.0 24.0
6th 1127 Nick Crickmore WOBYC 5.0 5.0 5.0 6.0 5.0 (7.0 DNF) 33.0 26.0

 

 

Sailwave Scoring Software 2.02 build 6 www.sailwave.com

{AG}/2012/2012 - Waveney Outlon{/AG}