Ken Potts Leads The Way

Gunfleet Sailing Club certainly picked a fine day to start its Spring Series of races; blue skies, unbroken sunshine and a light offshore breeze greeting the competitors last Sunday morning - 2 April.

With the fresh flood tide under them it proved a close call at the start, with some boats within a gnat’s whisker of being the wrong side of the line.  Peter Downer lead in his Comet but was soon overtaken by Ken Potts and Harry Swinbourne, both sailing Lasers.  The first leg was a tight reach down the coast to the St. Michael’s buoy and, at an early stage, father and son Paul and Elliot Berry hoisted the spinnaker of their Fireball, only to find the angle just too tight as the wind backed westerly.  Brothers Tom and Ed Philpot tried a similar tactic with their 405 but the shift in wind direction resulted in the boys stalling the boat.  Potts was leading by the time the fleet rounded the first mark, with Andy Dunnett and Nadia MacDonald second in their RS200.  It looked like Rob Lockett was to be third but the Berry’s Fireball just cut between Lockett and the buoy.  The second leg was back up the coast to the Eastcliff mark and this time the spinnakers flew to full effect.  Surprisingly Downer capsized when a small gust of wind caught him off-guard as he precariously sat on the bow of his Comet to reduce the hull’s wetted surface, and so maximise speed.  Apart from Potts, who just kept pulling away, the rest of the fleet stayed closely bunched with Swinbourne now in second place but constantly being challenged by Paul Stanton in his Laser, whilst Yvonne Gough fought in her Laser to try and get in front of Lockett but with little success.

As the boats headed out to the Seaward buoy the light winds dropped still further and it became quite a battle stemming the tide.  It was particularly noticeable on the next leg, into AWS, just how far Potts had drawn away; he rounded the latter mark just as the second boat reached Seaward.  The course then took everyone back out to sea before heading to the Kingscliff buoy and back through the line.  With the wind continuing to get even lighter the officer of the day had little option but to shorten the course to just one lap.

Results:
Spring Series - 01:
1.    Laser – Ken Potts
2.    Comet – Peter Downer
3.    Laser – Paul Stanton