Commodores Challenge at Poole and Parkstone Yacht Clubs

Commodores' Challenge match racing in Poole © David Harding / www.sailingscenes.co.uk

Commodores' Challenge match racing in Poole © David Harding / www.sailingscenes.co.uk

Parkstone YC breaks four-year drought and wins 3:2

Twenty young Poole Harbour sailors and their entourage of coaches, parents and supporters were grateful when, on December 27th, the weather gods eased their icy grip on England and allowed the temperature to rise to a balmy 5 degrees centigrade for the Commodores' Challenge, the annual match race on Elan 333 yachts between youth teams from Parkstone and Poole Yacht Clubs.

As the yachts headed out from this year’s host club, Parkstone, towards the race area off Brownsea, Poole’s sailors looked more focused, a little slicker in their boat handling, and altogether up for handing out another pasting to Parkstone. The best-of-five series was umpired by local sailors and Women’s World Match Racing Champions Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor.

The Yachts looked resplendent with their green and white spinnakers of event sponsors Hotel du Vin and Bistro, in 15 knots of southerly breeze.

Poole YC won the first start and first race comfortably as Parkstone YC struggled to find good boat trim and speed. Parkstone won the second start but still lost out on the race win as Poole showed superior boat speed up the long beats into the tide. The tide had started to slacken by Race 3 and Parkstone pulled off an excellent start and were able to apply tight cover on Poole immediately. With a sense of control emerging, Parkstone’s nerves settled down, sail trim and boat handling improved, and they could start to dictate tactics. This brought them their first race win against Poole in three years.

The average wind strength eased a little for Race 4, although there were still handy gusts to be sought. Poole had the favoured end of the line for pre-start manoeuvres which Parkstone evaded in order to win the start and cover Poole. The race was not without incident for Parkstone, who had a couple of nervous moments with a close port and starboard call on the first beat, and an uncleated spinnaker halyard slipping back through the crews’ hands as the huge sail filled on the first run. With tight cover up the second beat and increasingly confident spinnaker work back downwind, Parkstone pulled the match back to two wins apiece.

One could sense the psychological tables starting to turn as the match came down to the tie-breaking fifth race. The yachts peeled in opposite directions in the prestart manoeuvres and Poole tried to acquire the tactically advantageous chasing position, but were not really close enough. Parkstone broke the chase by gybing closely around an anchored spectator boat and found themselves on a perfect line to the start enabling them to squeeze Poole out near the Committee Boat. The race saw a tactical re-run of race 4 with Parkstone eventually pulling away to a comfortable lead as Poole took risks, including a brief grounding, attempting to force errors on the covering Parkstone yacht.

At the prize giving team captains Amy Yeoman (Parkstone YC) and Sam Cross (Poole YC) thanked the yacht owners Andy Macgregor and Stuart Piddock for generously lending their boats, thanked their respective coaches and the sponsors’ generosity in providing sails and support. As Amy received the Commodores Challenge Cup for Parkstone YC said that she was really happy that the team had shown passion, perseverance, focus and determination to win.