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The first spectacular season for the Race1 Ker 11.3s finished with the inaugural National Championships of this exciting class, run by the Royal Southern Yacht Club on September 29th and 30th. All of the first seven boats built competed except unfortunately for Michael White's On A High, which had been one of the star performers of the class during the summer.
On the first day Chief Race Officer David Arnold set 3 windward leewards, each of 3 laps. The legs were quite short for these fast boats which put a premium on boat handling and tactics. The wind was initially quite light and shifty from the south. The first race, sponsored by Quantum Sails (Parker and Kay), saw 'Cracker' (David Pinner) get the shifts right to lead at the first mark, followed by 'I-Site' (Robbie Cameron-Davies) and 'Kerisma' (Chris Bull). 'Cracker' increased her lead over the next two laps while the rest of the fleet had a close battle, but on the last run 'Cracker' fell into a light patch, then went round the less favourable leeward gate mark and saw both 'I-Site' and 'Kerisma' get through to finish first and second. 'Fair Do's V' (John Shepherd) was fourth. The second race, sponsored by Hyde Sails, saw the wind building to 12 to l4 kts from the south-west. ‘Kerisma’, helmed by the 11.3 designer Jason Ker with Graham Sunderland as tactician led at the first mark followed by 'I-Site' and then 'El Gringo' (Nick Hartshorn with Phil Crebbin as tactician), the latter on its first day out sailing. 'Kerisma' maintained her lead from 'I-Site' throughout the race, but the fight behind them was quite intense. Eventually 'Minnie the Moocher' (Anthony Richards) got ahead of 'El Gringo' to finish third.
The wind increased to 16 to 18 kts for the third race, sponsored by Yachts and Yachting, which made the very close racing even more exciting. 'I-Site', helmed.by Dave Lenz with Kevin Sproul enjoying his first ride on an 11.3 as tactician, led at the first mark followed by 'El Gringo' and 'Minnie the Moocher'. While 'I-Site' established a safe lead, there was a real battle for second place, which 'Minnie' looked like winning for a while. However, at the third windward mark ‘Minnie' managed to get badly hooked up with it, dragging it off downwind. This allowed 'El Gringo' back into second with 'Fair Do's V' (helmed by Jarrod Simpson) third. 'Kerisma' had a bad first leg and only managed to recover to fourth. At the end of the first day, the Vision Yachts (builders of the 11.3) prize for the day went to 'I-Site' on 4 points, with 'Kerisma' in second with 7 points and 'El Gringo' third with 11 points, one point ahead of 'Fair Do's V'. 'El Gringo' was then in the lead for the Owner/driver trophy ahead of 'Minnie' and 'Cracker'.
Race four, sponsored by B & G/Diverse, on the second day was a longer race using regular Solent marks. There was a strong southerly wind gusting to 24kts with a forecast of more to come. The first upwind leg to Gurnard saw 'El Gringo' show good speed to lead followed by 'Minnie' and 'Fair Do's V'. There was then a gusty asymmetric spinnaker leg to Seascope which caused some problems for the less practised crews. 'I-Site' took the lead followed by 'Minnie' with 'El Gringo' now in third. After going upwind to Prince Consort there was another asymmetric spinnaker leg to Bainbridge. 'Kerisma' did well on this leg to pull through to third ahead of 'Fair Do's V' and positions then remained the same to the finish with 'I-Site' first and 'Minnie' second. This confirmed the overall win for the Race1 Championship trophy and Vision Yachts crew prizes for 'I-Site' and second place for 'Kerisma', but there was then a tie between 'Minnie', 'El Gringo' and 'Fair Do's V' which would have been resolved in that order. However, 'Fair Do's V' retired from the race because she had been sailing with an extra person and so was over the crew weight limit. This brought 'El Gringo' up one place in the race so that she took 3rd overall and won the C Spars Owner/driver Championship trophy by one point from 'Minnie', a great result for Nick Hartshorn's first weekend sailing his new boat. Winner of the statuesque bird trophy (described as a male chicken) for the best deliberate mistake was 'Minnie' for the attempt to moor to the windward mark in Race 3.
1st ‘I-Site' Robbie Cameron-Davies 5pts |
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