Day 2
READING THE WIND
For Poole Week competitors on Monday, it was all about getting on the right side of the wind shifts. There were a lot of them, and they were big. That and negotiating the tide, while some of the Flying Fifteens later in the day also had to think about keels and mud.
To say that it was a challenging day would be an understatement. It was also a day with a difference in terms of courses. All the fleets in the Top Triangle started their second race from the committee boat and sailed to a windward mark before heading across towards Parkstone and then beating down the harbour. All the Top Triangle fleets, that is, except the RS200s, who were being observed and filmed by the Poole Week coach, Niall Myant-Best, so they sailed another windward/leeward course. For the Flying Fifteens, beating all the way down the harbour still wasn’t enough: they then completed a circuit of the islands (Brownsea, Furzey and Green) in a dying breeze and dropping tide, getting home rather later than expected for a well-earned beer.
Earlier in the day the Cornish Shrimpers, sailing the first of their week’s three races, had also completed a round-the-islands course in suitably gentlemanly style with no tacking needed from one side of the islands to the other.
Despite so many variables, most of the boats that had been at or near the top of their fleets after Sunday’s racing were still there or thereabouts at the end of Monday. Hywel Roberts pulled out a good lead in the ILCA 7s (full-rig Lasers in old parlance) with two more firsts, and now sits seven points clear of Alan Davis in 2nd. There’s a clear leader in the ILCA 6s (Laser Radials) too, with Oliver Allen-Wilcox counting three firsts from his four races.
Things are tighter in the RS200s, with James Williams and Sarah Tuppen eking out a one-point lead over Will Storey. After an eventful couple of days, which saw an unfortunately-timed crew-overboard incident and a failed ratchet block that was fixed with the help of a hair-pin, Ben Whalley and Emma Hartley scored a 2nd and a 1st to stay in close contention in 3rd overall.
Racing doesn’t get much tighter than it has been in the Wayfarers for the first two days. After Sunday’s races, three boats were tied on four points apiece. Jackie Dobson and Dave Mitchell are now on 5 points, as are Sean and Helen Murray after a 2, 1 Monday scoreline.
New race winners emerged in some of the fleets including the Dart 18s, but in most of the others it was a matter of the established front-runners proving just why they are the front-runners.
Poole Week isn’t all about the winning, however. At the daily prize-giving, special prizes were awarded to crews who distinguished themselves in ways that ranged from ingenious on-the-water repairs (a hair-pin has many uses, it seems) to jumping overboard to push the boat off the mud and needing some outside assistance to get back aboard afterwards.
There’s some serious racing going on, but Poole Week has never lost its sense of fun.
