Sailing: Angus Jolly claims Ramsey Regatta crown

Kee and Pressly complete top three following six-race weekend

Report by Jerry Colman:

22 boats from all round the Island gathered over the glorious weekend of 22/23 June to compete for the MS&CC’s Daily Mirror Trophy for the winning boat over a series of six races in Ramsey Bay. 

The forecast was for light to moderate westerlies or north-westerlies on the Saturday then very light north-westerlies turning to south-easterlies at around noon on Sunday - Sunshine was predicted and the sea state would be slight or calm.

The forecourt was busy on Saturday morning with Nathan Bradley’s enormous National 18 with it’s skyscraping rig contrasting with the diminutive Teras of Charlie Watterson, Tullie Hyett and George Pearce. 

Also we were fascinated to see Peter Cope unloading his foiling Waszp and we wondered if there would be enough wind to let it show it’s paces.

The fleet assembled around the Committee Boat Ballure, ably manned by Keith Poole and Yogi Quayle, about half a mile off the Mooragh in a pleasant but quite shifty and gusty Westerly. 

As well as the above, the fleet included 7 Lasers of various hues, 4 RS Aeros and scattering of other classes including the Whitelegg’s Enterprise, the Teare’s Wayfarer, Dave Batchelor’s Hadron H2 and Jerry Colman’s Finn.

The first start line was set slightly biased to the pin end (meaning that boats starting at that end), however the wind shifted a little more during the starting sequence making the pin end highly-favoured so those of us who had clocked this started with a good advantage.

The breeze continued to shift back and forth and up and down in strength giving those who can read the signs a big help and proving very difficult for the Waszp who was often seen going rather slowly in displacement mode rather than literally flying along on his hydrofoils.

Mark roundings saw some close quarters situations with a few taking penalties but nothing too serious although your correspondent was subsequently surprised to find how much doing two turns set you back – quite a fight to recover from that.

Over this and the next two races, the Aeros of Angus Jolly and Andrew Dean seemed to be nearer the front than most as the finishes approached with the Lasers of Simon Pressly (defending champion), Ralph Kee and junior Ivan Nicholls not far behind.

The Finn also showed some moments of good speed but a few poor tacks and ultimately a capsize at the last mark rounding of the day on Saturday scuppered any chances of a podium result or anything near it.

Sunday’s light forecast turned out to be a bit pessimistic from our point of view but accurate in the timing of the big shift around noon. 

Dave Batchelor’s Hadron revelled in the moderate conditions and he did always seem to be in the right place to take advantage of the shifts and gusts - he only sailed on Sunday but certainly put down a marker with three wins mostly by big margins.

Other results were often down to a few seconds between several boats so even slight mistakes or lapses of effort or concentration can cost you places.

Overall The Gus in the Aero 7 got just far enough in front to take the Trophy from Ralph Kee and Simon Pressly in Lasers. Ivan also in his Laser wasn’t far behind in fith place overall, winning the junior prize. (Andrew Dean intervening in fourth).