Rybrook Abersoch Keelboat Week 2015

by Mike Crompton 31 Aug 2015 11:55 BST 24-28 August 2015

Abersoch Keelboat Week 2015 © Andy Green / www.greenseaphotography.co.uk

On Monday 24th August the skies cleared and the rain abated to welcome 41 entries to the South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club for Rybrook Abersoch Keelboat Week.

The event is a relaxed week of racing with 4 fleets allowing all boats to compete. The new small keel boat fleet proved a great success with entries from Lymington, Blackpool and Fleetwood and Carsington. IRC 1 and 2 had several top local boats entered but Conor Phelan's Jump Juice from Cork proved to be the boat to beat and a great competitor on and off the water. The White Sails fleet was the largest with 14 entries and racing just one long race per day was well supported by family boats and a team of "old racers" coming out of retirement on Tamur to show the fleet that they still have all the skills to win.

The week started with a perfect day on Monday and with the North Sails team providing on and off the water coaching it proved to be an extremely popular day and the debrief was very well attended. The North Team followed up on Day 2 with more on the water videoing that proved to many of us why the top boats are at the front. Thanks to Neil Lamont for the loan of his Turbo Rib!

The week will be remembered for strong winds and so much so that on Wednesday the 30 knot gusts resulted in a 2 hour postponement followed by a skippers vote that elected to stay ashore so racing was abandoned for the day.

The remainder of the week remained very breezy but the blue skies and warm sunshine suited everyone and there was some extremely close racing none more so than in the IRC 2 fleet with Daydream Believer, Mollissa and Injenious sharing the race wins and the results only finally decided in race 6 with Injenious beating Liverpool Yacht clubs Daydream by 5 seconds. These two boats a First 34.7 and a J97 were rated the same and they proved very evenly matched. The 34.7 faster upwind in the breezy conditions but the lighter 97 flying downwind.

Abersoch Keelboat Week 2015 - photo © Andy Green / www.greenseaphotography.co.uk

The Sigmas raced in the IRC 2 fleet and Tim Saunder's Marauders was the first Sigma followed by Sloe Gin and Matthew Wild's Sable. These one design racers always have close and exciting races and there were a few close calls.

The small keel boats were won convincingly by Tokolosche Harry Ellens whose Hunter 19 won 4 races and collected armfuls of silverware. We hope he returns next year! Tim Allen's Hunter Delta Defiant was 2nd and the SB20 Sonic Boom of David Wilkinson 3rd. The three Beneteau 211's are proving very popular at SCYC and we expect more to join the fleet next year.

Abersoch Keelboat Week 2015 - photo © Andy Green / www.greenseaphotography.co.uk

White sails is always popular and with Tamur crammed full of talent they were always going to do well but they were pushed hard by Royal Dee YC entrant Stratisfear with a final race win. 3rd place was taken by Comfortably Numb. Other notable racers in this fleet were Aquaplane and Wild Thyme in 4th and 5th place overall. Both are very much cruising yachts and sailed well to finish just outside the medals.

Finally IRC 1 was a very competitive fleet with the current Welsh IRC winners 1st and 2nd place all racing and Mojito the current ISORA series leading boat and 17th overall in the Fastnet all on the start line. Jump Juice and crew were always going to be hard to beat but Imposter with Richard Fildes and his show girls was consistently in the mix. Mojito won the battle of the J109's finishing 3rd overall one place ahead of the Batson Family's Dehler Wombat.

The daily prize giving hosted by our own very non PC presenter Rob [Clarkson] Riddell was always a fun half hour with prizes going everywhere. Thanks Rob!

The parties were all lively with live music on 4 nights.. Class Dinners a new introduction were all fully booked and the nights went on and on with the bar bouncing until after midnight. 12.00 Starts each day were very much appreciated.

Thanks to all at SCYC for this great event but particularly to Rybrook and Conway Land Rover plus all our other sponsors who made the week possible; North Sails, Slam, JKA, The Vaynol, W&G Williams, Cwrw Llyn, Partingtons, Firmhelm, Arris and John and Karen Batson.

Overall Results:

Series Place	Sail No	Boat Name	Boat Type	Skipper	Team	Handicap	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Pts
IRC1
1	2007	Jump Juice	Ker 37	Conor Phelan	Llanbedrog	1.104	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	5
2	7377	Imposter	Corby 33	Richard Fildes	St Tudwal's	136	2	2	3	3	5	2	1	10
3	9047	Mojito	J109	Peter Dunlop & Vicky Cox	Bardsey	112	3	5	2	5	2	3	3	13
4	8634	Wombat	Dehler 36	Jon Batson	Bardsey	113	7	3	4	2	3	4	4	16
5	8209	Jeepster	J109	David Lean	St Tudwal's	115	4	4	6	4	4	5	6	21
6	6940	Converting Machine	Corby 40	David Cummaford	Llanbedrog	19	6	7	5	7	7	6	5	29
7	8609	Jetstream	J109	John Collins	Llanbedrog	12	5	6	7	6	6	9	9	30
8	79	Ker' ageous	Ker 36	Ken Roberts	Llanbedrog	188	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	38
IRC2
1	2728	Injenious	J97	Mike Crompton & Graham Hallworth	Bardsey	0.98	3	1	2	1	1	1	2	6
2	7347	Daydream Believer	First 34.7	Jim Cartwright	Bardsey	0.98	2	11	1	2	2	2	1	8
3	9201	Mollissa	Projection 920	Paddy Atkinson	Cilan	0.988	1	2	3	3	3	11	11	12
4	2092	Jaya	J92	Rod Thompson	Llanbedrog	0.983	4	3	7	7	4	3	3	17
5	4583	Marauders	Sigma 33	Tim Saunders	Llanbedrog	0.913	5	4	4	6	6	5	4	22
6	4587	Sloe Gin	Sigma 33	James Baldwin	St Tudwal's	0.913	6	5	6	4	7	6	7	27
7	9814	Sable	Sigma 33	Mathew Wild	Cilan	0.913	11	11	5	8	5	4	8	30
8	4500	Fandango	Sigma 33	Cope Lee Price	Cilan	0.913	7	7	8	5	8	8	6	33
9	2678	Perseverance	Beneteau First 30	Wim Batist	St Tudwal's	0.977	8	6	9	9	9	9	9	41
10	24	She Too	She 31B	Fawcett Family	Cilan	0.847	11	11	11	11	11	7	5	45
Small Keelboats
1	2634	Tokolosche	Hunter 19	Harry Ellens	Llanbedrog	0.827	1	1	4	1	1	2		6
2	28	Defiant	Hunter Delta	Tim Allan	St Tudwal's	0.827	2	2	6	2	3	3		12
3	3070	Sonic Boom	SB20	David Wilkinson	Bardsey	0.921	3	3	1	4	5	4		15
4	3382	Jester	Beneteau First 211	Charles & Sarah Downes	Cilan	0.808	5	5	5	3	2	5		20
5	3285	Hat's SB3	SB20	Askew Family	Bardsey	0.925	6	6	7	6	4	1		23
6	369	Nomadic	Beneteau 21.7	Josh Sharp	St Tudwal's	0.798	4	8	8	7	6	10		33
7	264	WillToWin 2	Seascape 18	Wil Partington	Llanbedrog	0.887	10	4	3	8	10	10		35
8	205	Gillian Duffy 2	K6	Howard Garner	Cilan	0.957	10	10	2	5	10	10		37
9	8201	Mai	Beneteau First 211	Tony Sampson	Bardsey	0.784	7	7	9	9	10	10		42
White Sails
1	9649	Tamur	X362 Sport	Nick Thistleton	St Tudwal's	12	15	1	1	2				4
2	621	Stratisfear	Corby 36	The Cowper crew	St Tudwal's	1.13	6	2	2	1				5
3	7362	Comfortably Numb	Projection 762	Mike Maylor	Bardsey	0.952	1	3	3	3				7
4	7878	Aquaplane	Dufour 405GL	Mark Thompson	St Tudwal's	17	2	8	4	4				10
5	6771	Wild Thyme	Elan 38	Arthur Stephenson	St Tudwal's	0.958	3	4	6	7				13
6	9171	Skybird	Maxi 1100	David Jackson	Bardsey	0.997	4	5	5	5				14
7	5517	Spindrift	Scampi	Richard Orrell	Cilan	0.866	5	7	9	6				18
8	1660	Aunt Jessie	Beneteau First 325	Roy & Tilly Dearden	St Tudwal's	0.874	8	6	7	8				21
9	6850	Ard Na Mara	Dehler 28	Frank Powell	Bardsey	0.801	9	10	8	9				26
10	9477	Rebellion	UFO 34	Ian Green	Cilan	0.857	7	9	15	15				31
11	3004	Blue Moves	Beneteau Oceanis 34	Andrew Baker	Cilan	0.853	10	11	15	15				36
12	4578	Archatron		Godfrey Family	Llanbedrog	0.883	15	15	10	15				40
13	906	Tossie	Jeanneau	Martyn Hudson	Llanbedrog	0.895	11	15	15	15				41
14	7762	Falcon	Hustler 32	Bill Price	Llanbedrog	0.897	15	15	15	15				45