Report by Mike McMahon

In the fifth week of Douglas Bay Yacht Club’s First SKANCO Series, two hotly contested Pursuit Races completed the series. In both races it was vital to make correct use of the strong flood tide.

On Tuesday the wind was some 15 knots from west south west and the course was set from the mid-bay Start Line to Hilton, Conister, Queens, Laxey Towing and repeat until the finish at 9 p.m.
In Class 1 the three Sportsboats were as expected evenly matched. Unfortunately Yknot jumped the gun at her start and had to return to start again, an error from which she never recovered. Kick’em Jenny led all the way to take a relatively easy victory from Fruit & Nuts and Yknot.

In the Handicap Class Heatwave was first to start, followed by Buzz Factor. They were close on the first lap, but after the first spinnaker run and rounding of the Laxey Towing mark, Buzz Factor headed south in good breeze but against the tide. Heatwave tacked to the west and went close inshore by Port Jack, then tacked and was able to lay the Hilton mark by cheating the tide along the shore, which put her into a commanding lead. At this stage Skoosh was third, Tango fourth and Eauvation fifth. Heatwave extended her lead and scored a clear victory, with Buzz Factor second and Skoosh third. On the last lap Eauvation overhauled Tango and took fourth place. Tango retired and did not finish the race.

On Thursday the wind was from the east and only about 8 to 10 knots. The course was windward/leeward between Villa and Laxey Towing, passing through the Start gate on each upwind leg. As Fruit & Nuts was the only Sportsboat in evidence, she had a sail-over in Class 1.
In the Handicap Class Bob Brown’s nice little yawl Sublime was first away, followed by Heatwave, Buzz Factor, Drumbeat, Skoosh, Tango, Aurora and Eauvation. At the first rounding of Laxey Towing Heatwave had passed Sublime and set off downwind on a good spinnaker run chased by Buzz Factor. Drumbeat and Skoosh had a gybing battle, with Skoosh eventually coming out ahead. Tango passed both Drumbeat and Skoosh, but was in turn overtaken by Eauvation.

On the final upwind leg Heatwave passed through the gate just ahead of Eauvation which had come through the fleet in fine style. After a couple of covering tacks Heatwave could not hold off the bigger boat which was able to point higher and she was passed before the Laxey mark.
The final down wind run was closely contested right to the end. Eauvation held her lead although Heatwave tried hard to get back at her. Tango and Buzz Factor were neck and neck, but Tango just managed to get in front at the final gun for the end of the race.

Results

1^st TUESDAY - Race 5

1^st THURSDAY - Race 5

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 6:57 am and is filed under Race News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.