RC Laser Winter Series event 2 at West Lancashire Yacht Club

RC Laser Winter Series event 2 at West Lancs © Tony Wilson

RC Laser Winter Series event 2 at West Lancs © Tony Wilson

On Sunday 19th January West Lancs Yacht Club hosted the second of the traditional early season RC Laser winter series. The event this week was shared with the Dragonforce fleet. The home club had fielded four boats with three coming from Fleetwood and a further boat each from Burwain and Two Islands.

There was an encouraging weather forecast of a dry sunny day with a light southerly breeze. However when the boats took to the water it was certainly dry and sunny but the wind was about 5mph from the North East. All the boats were on the big 'A' rig for these conditions.

The course was a triangle, sausage, and a final beat to the finish line. The windward mark and wing mark had a spreader mark a short distance away with a gate at the bottom of the course. The Dragonforce course was a duplicate of the RC Laser course but set a short distance inside of the RC Laser course.

The RC Lasers started first followed by the Dragonforce fleet a couple of minutes later. The start line was fairly true making it a very close contest up the first beat. Shaun Holbeche was early to tack on to port out towards the centre of the lake where he found more pressure. This turned out to be the right way to go and gave him a comfortable lead at the first mark which he increased on every leg to the finish. Behind it was all much closer with Alan Tickle just holding on to second place from Skip Reaser. The starting sequence was changed for the remaining races with the Dragonforce fleet starting first.

This set the pattern for the day with Shaun reeling off a string of first places with only one second place out of the seven races sailed in the morning. The other race winner was John Sharman from Burwain who was having a close battle for the remaining places with John Armstrong and Tony Wilson.

The afternoon restart was held up by the wind reverting to the forecasted direction of South. Requiring the course to be turned around. Eventually when sailing commenced the wind was probably a bit lighter than the morning and the first afternoon race was a long affair. As in the morning Shaun continued his winning run but lost two of the five races sailed in the afternoon to Tony Wilson.

The final results had Shaun Holbeche first by a considerable margin counting 9 firsts and one second place. Behind Shaun however the final finishing positions were much closer and not decided until the final race. Three boats were only separated by only three points. With his two race wins second place went to Tony Wilson on 30 points followed by John Sharman two points behind. John Armstrong was fourth just one point further back.

A big thank you to the West Lancs race team of Alan and Trevor who once again ran a fantastic event. We look forward to the next RC Laser round on Sunday 16th February.

Results:

1st Shaun Holbece 11 points
2nd Tony Wilson 30 points
3rd John Sharman 32 points
4th John Armstrong 33 points