Sussex Yacht Club Regatta

Duncan Money's J90 'Moose on the loose' wins IRC1 in the Sussex Regatta © Warwick Baker

Friday 25 March

Both Brighton Marina Yacht Club and Sovereign Harbour Yacht Club organised their own feeder races to the Sussex Regatta hosted by Sussex Yacht Club at Shoreham. SHYC started from Eastbourne in thick fog and very light and variable winds. Due to the tidal constraints to lock in at Shoreham most of the fleet retired at some stage and motor sailed to Shoreham. However the race Officer was kept busy finishing the boats from BMYC who reached along the coast on a steady southerly sea breeze. Reports soon came in that although BMYC had finished, First light and Yogie from SHYC were still at sea and racing. The race officer sat tight on the beach finish line until 18:15 hrs and finished Yogie, sadly after 10hrs sailing, First Light failed to cross the finish line correctly and was scored DNF. From SHYC Yogie took the win. In the BMYC IRC fleet, 10 seconds separated the top three boats, but Vision did just enough to take the win. Felix won the PY class by around 3 minutes

Saturday 26 March

The Race officer faced a testing day with light and variable winds forecast. Race 1 for all fleets was battle of wills and a search for wind, starting in a steady N Easterly 5/8 knots the wind soon started to break down across the course and places were changing all over the fleet as the front runners parked up in the holes and the boats behind saw their chance and sailed around them. The crew of J109 Wow sat for half an hour in one puddle of no wind and watched the fleet sail away just yards from them. IRC 1 was finally won by AWOL, IRC 2 by Alcyone, PY I was taken by Kereru and PY 2 by Skellig.

Race 2 for the PY fleet was not started due to the light and unstable conditions, but the IRC fleets got away on a short windward leeward course. The wind by now had shifted to an unstable southerly sector, the right side of the beat worked well for J92 Mojo and they went on to win IRC 2 by over six minutes. IRC 1 was finally taken by Exocet. A difficult days racing for all.

Sunday 27 March

Although it was much colder than Saturday, the fleet was greeted by a little more breeze. Around 10/12 knots blew across the course from the N East sector for the duration of the day, giving all the boats a good days racing. This time the race officer set a simple triangle course and all fleets got 2 races in. In IRC 1 Moose On The Loose finally found form and went on to take both race 3 and 4 giving them the win in IRC 1 over all. J92 Mojo went on to take two more wins, which gave them a 1st,1st, 1st, score line to count…usually enough to win. In PY 1 a 2nd 3rd and 2nd was just enough to give Ella the win over all. In PY 2 Skellig counted three wins and took this class over all.

Overall Results:

IRC 1
1st Moose on The Loose (BMYC) Duncan Money & Mervyn Gutteridge
2nd Jagga (BMYC) John Duffy
3rd AWOL (SYC) Steve Thomas

IRC 2
1st Mojo (SYC) Robin & Jill Stevenson
2nd Julliette (BMYC) Mark Lloyd
3rd Nielson Redeye (BMYC) Pete & Pip Tyler

PY 1
1st Ella (SYC) Graham Roberts
2nd Kereru (BMYC) Peter Wittle
3rd RB (BMYC) Sam

PY 2
1st Skellig (SYC) Will Camp
2nd Moonlight Saunter (SYC) David & Jennie Skinner