Musto Skiff Open at Itchenor Sailing Club

With day one cancelled and the light wind specialists of Sam Barker and Ben Schooling staying at home for day two, we knew were in for a big day out. The 9 strong fleet left the calm of the club to round the Bosum corner to 15-25 knots and bright sunshine.

Race one started with Sam Pascoe port tacking the fleet and heading out the tide. Unfortunately this was completely the wrong way to go and when they next crossed Dan Vincent had a nice lead. Dan held this lead till the bottom of the first run when the hard charging Peter Greenhalgh briefly passed him before windmill into windward at the leeward mark. Dan was then untroubled for the rest of the race with everyone else having a swim.

Itchenor Musto Skiff Open - photo © Noah Fitzgerald

Race 2 and it was Andy Tarboton time for a port tack flier. Once again it was the wrong way to go and Sam won the left leading the rest of the race. Peter was chasing hard until a swim in the last run. This meant the top 4 were reversed from race one.

So going into the last Sam, Andy, Dan and Robert Richardson were on equal points and no discard. Roll on a final race show down.

Itchenor Musto Skiff Open - photo © Noah Fitzgerald

In Race 3 Peter won the pin and lead to the left. Sam and Dan tacked under Peter at the shore. Cue a reach of between Dan and Sam which really finished off Sam's arms but he got Dan to tack of. Peter lead at the windward mark and was passed by Sam at the leeward mark when he left the kite drop a little late. Position stayed the same till the next run when Sam rolled out the back setting up for the gybe. Thankfully he let go of the tiller but water ski behind the boat for what seemed a 100 metres with the mainsheet attached to his trapeze harness. This gave Peter the race win and the third different race winner of the day. Andy came passed Sam upturned boat next, gybing between his boat and floating sunglasses showing how it should be done. Second in this race gave Andy the event win. Dan in second and Sam in third and the pleasure of writing this report. The top 6 boats were all using the new main sails and the other 3 were saving there's for a lighter day. Over 100 new mainsail have now been sold.

Talk ashore turned to the SailJuice series starting in two weeks time at Draycot. Sounds like the Musto Skiff fleet will be busy this winter at these events. Hopefully we can replicate Andy consistently and stop our silly swimming lessons.

Overall Results: