Chichester Yacht Club Snowflake Series 2024 - Day 3
by Biddy Colborne 15 Feb 10:05 GMT
14 January - 10 March 2024
A perfect day greeted the forty or so dinghies, from Ospreys to a Mirror, which arrived at CYC for the third Snowflake week end. It was delightful to welcome back Merlin sailors from Shoreham and Itchenor to make up a highly competitive fleet of five boats.
Blue sky and a lively force 4 wind allowed us to watch some exciting and skilful sailing round the normal trapezoid course, which provided some very speedy reaches, a tricky run and beat with opportunities to make big gains (or losses!) as the wind shifted.
In the fast fleet in Race Five, the Merlins competed with the RS400 of Jack Holden and Rob Henderson (CYC) for line honours. Jack was first over the line with William and Alex Warren (Shoreham SC) second and George Yeoman and Owain Matthews (ISC) third. However, on handicap the Finn of Matt Johnson (ESSC) comfortably beat them all with William second, George third and Jack fourth.
In Race Six Jack and Rob not only finished first but held first place on handicap. Chris Gould and Sophie Mackie (Shoreham SC) established a good lead over the pursuing Merlins, with George and Owain following them into third place. In the five strong Hadron fleet, in race 5 Ian Brookes (CYC) had been the leading Hadron with Steve Kelsall (CYC) second. In race 6, Steve went one better to win the Hadron battle with Paul Walker (Shoreham SC) second.
In the medium fleet in race 5, again there was close racing with the two Aero 7s of Mark Riddington (ESSC) and John Derbyshire (ESC) finishing first and holding their handicap to take first and second places. Rob and Gemma Burridge (Weir Wood SC) in their 2000 had a disastrous first lap, but made up time to finish third on handicap. Alex Butler in his Solo (HISC) just pipped Ian Barnett (CYC) in another Solo by 6 seconds for fourth place.
The Burridges just managed to beat Alex also by six seconds on handicap in the 6th race with Mark coming third ahead of Ian Morgan (Warsash SC) in his Solution.
There was a rather small slow fleet but Terry and Charlie Hunt (Netley SC) in their Mirror took two first places from Louie Cornwell (Felpham SC) in his ILCA4.
Results [may be updated on the 15th Feb]: www.cyc.co.uk/race_results/2024-snowflake.htm