POSH Regatta was the 3rd “Tim Hemsley” Southern Phantom Open sponsored by Monkey Marine and Exmoor Ales
A loud howling noise greeted sailors from the seafront lighting cables as they arrived on Saturday morning to begin rigging for the 1.30 pm first race. The wind had increased as forecast for most of the morning to around force 5, gusting 6. Those looking through the two webcams from a distance to see what the weather looked like would have been fooled when they saw the almost total calm near the shore. Most were relieved when the race officer said that he would be setting a short course near the beach on the smoother water. After hearing all this by proxy and looking at the web cam, Mr Orman decided it was worth driving down to see what he could do. His man had rigged his boat and all was set for a good afternoon.
A merry band approached the race course several miles offshore to be confronted with further increases in the wind and wave strength but all got themselves ready on the line for the first race which commenced pretty well as advertised. The Phantom fleet started with Blazes and the general handicap fleet. From the off, despite a slightly less than favourable start, Mike Tustin seemed to have luck on his side and practically every shift favoured his side of the course allowing him to reach the first mark a little way ahead of Andrew Wilde, followed by Nick Orman. These positions remained the same for nearly all of the first two laps. It all went horribly wrong for Mike however, when put under pressure by Andy. The gybe mark caused total disaster in the ever increasing wind and Mike went for a really long bath. At about the same time, Nick Orman had apparently been having a long conversation with the rescue crew while he freed his leg from the control lines underneath his boat. Places therefore changed and Andy went onto to finish the race first followed by James Dawson and Adam Perry.
As the race committee finished the rest of the racers over the next twenty minutes or so, the wind continued to gain strength and due to the fact that capsizes were getting more common and longer, the race committee decided to cancel the racing for the rest of the afternoon. Mike Tustin (The author) was certainly pleased with this decision as he had been sitting on the bottom of his boat surveying a smooth hull with no centreboard sticking out for a good while, much to everyone else's amusement. It was therefore decided that the best thing to do was to meet again in the bar and in time honoured fashion, the Phantom sailors started to do what they do best............................
The next morning dawned with much lighter winds and despite most sailors missing the breakfast briefing, everyone somehow managed to meet on the start line in the by now freshening breeze. The race officer had followed his own advice of the previous day and set a much shorter course which was almost in sight of the shore. With a slight starboard bias to the line, the starters were bunched very close to the committee boat as the black flag start commenced. In the general melee that followed Andrew Wilde, Mike Tustin and Nick Orman continued to fight each other off with everyone else very close behind for what was probably the closest race of the weekend. The three lap race saw quite a lot of place changing in the first 4 boats with Olly Hopkins finally coming through to claim fourth position, just behind Nick Orman, Mike Tustin and Andrew Wilde who won that race.
The second race of the day saw further freshening to the wind and this produced another very hotly contested race. Andrew Wilde led from the off with Nick Orman following closely at his heals. At times, it looked like he would make it past Andrew but he never quite got there, with leg after leg dominated by the Wilde one. Further back in the fleet, there was a wrangle going on as James Dawson, Olly Hopkins and Mike Tustin battled it out. James had developed a clean set of heels for this race and proceeded to show everyone behind how hiking should be done with brutal determination. For Olly Hopkins in Sponge Bob, the race end was too far away as gear failure once again drove him back to the beach for an early shower. Adam Perry who was also seen to be giving a good hiking demo had gear failure in this race with mainsheet block failure. For this race, James beat Mike grabbing a well earned third.
Race three started with a much depleted fleet with 4 people in for early changing. Once again, the first four sailors to the windward mark included Andrew, James, Nick and Mike and it was hard to predict who was going to arrive first. After the first lap, Andrew answered this pretty finally by demonstrating that hard line tactic of just leave them for dead. On the second lap, James D's boat gave up the ghost and he allowed Mike and Nick to fight it out up the last beat with Mike finally finishing just behind Andrew. At that point, Andrew sailed off towards the beach apparently leaving Mike and Nick to fight out who was going to get second overall.
Race four started with Andrew back from a tour of the bay, showing once again what a good idea it was to start well but Nick seemed to be on a rope just behind and sometimes just in front of Andy for the first half of the race. Positions soon became fixed in that race as exhaustion took over. The end of this race saw Andrew, Nick and Mike take the first three positions with Neil Boughton just behind in fourth place. At this point Andrew Nick and Mike decided to head in to rest.
The final race saw Neil alone for the duration and steadily worsening conditions. In my opinion it took a brave man to stay out in that and so hats off to Neil. It also got him a fourth position overall.
Overall first position went to Andrew Wilde followed by Nick Orman and Mike Tustin. This was another first class event run by PSC and its supporters. On behalf of the Phantom class I would like to thank the organisers for this very well run event and hope they can manage the same again next year. They certainly managed to get the races in despite Mother Nature's serious attempts to frighten everyone off the water. It is also worthwhile thanking Yachts and Yachting who sponsored the prizes. Nearly all of high placed sailors went away with an additional prize at the end of the day – better luck next time Nick! Also a mention to our sponsors Monkey and Marine and Exmoor Ales as it's building up to be a very close season!
