X-332 National Championships at Royal Southern Yacht Club

This was hosted by Royal Southern Yacht Club in the Hamble and run as part of the X-Yachts Solent Cup.

The three day event was a 7 race series with 1 discard. All races were windward / leeward courses and started 5 minutes behind the new X35 fleet.

The fleet included 2 boats from the East Coast, John Barrett and Paul Woodward’s X-factor from the Royal Temple YC, Ramsgate, and Ian Kirkpatrick’s Fatjax from Haven Ports with the rest coming from the South Coast headed by Robert Peter’s Reckless Rat and Ian Dawson’s Glidex. These four managed to take the first four places in every race apart from the last when Bob Baker’s Brightwork managed a 4th.

In every race the top four positions changed on a regular basis on the windward and downwind legs. Fatjax won the first day with a 1st and 2nd closely following by Xfactor with 3rd and 1st. Day 2 included three races with X-factor taking the first race and now Reckless Rat comes into the frame with two wins and were winners of the day with Glidex closely 2nd and with 1 point more and 3rd on the day was Xfactor.

By the end of day 2 the top four boats were all within 1 point and all four giving away a 4th as a discard, so going into the last day all was to sail for. With the breeze up to 20 knots now for the first race X-factor powers off the start line going faster and higher than all the fleet and managing to lead the class by a large margin at the windward mark followed by setting the 0.9 AP spinnaker for a fast run including two gybes back to the leeward gate. This was the only race in the championship when the first boat, X-factor, rounded at the windward mark and held the lead until the end of the race to take the line honours.

Now on to the last race, X-factor has the jump with 2 points less after discard, from their closest rivals Fatjax, who managed a 2nd in the first race. The fleet heads up the first beat to the windward mark X-factor rounds first by small margin over Fatjax and Reckless Rat. Fatjax manages to overall X-factor on the first run by choosing the opposite side to X-factor. On the second beat the first three are cross tacking all the way to the mark with Fatjax rounding 1st on the second lap. By now X-factor only needs a 3rd to win and so keeps out of trouble to take 3rd in the final race and be crowned 2007 X332 National Champions.

Overall Results: (Click here to fill in Gear Guide information)

1st X-factor, John Barrett & Paul Woodward, RTYC
2nd Fatjax, Ian Kirkpatrick HPYC
3rd Reckless Rat, Robert Peters