After the gale force winds at the first H2 open event of the year at Chichester YC last weekend, the H2 fleet moved to Queen Mary Sailing Club for a much gentler experience. On Saturday, 1st April, 14 H2s entered for the 2023 Inland Championships.
Entries included two of the new batch of boats moulded by MTag Composites and two boats fitted with the new standard H2 spars from Selden Masts, which attracted a great deal of interest.
Another significant feature of the day was the participation of Anne Gates, a two times ladies champion in the Solo class; the first woman to compete in an H2 open event.
The PRO, Neil O'Leary, set a triangle-sausage course for the scheduled four races and it soon became apparent that the stars of last week's 'survival' event were not so dominant in the 7 to 10 knot Northerly breeze.
However, last week's runner-up and two times Inland Champion Richard Leftley was showing his versatility with second and fourth placings, with Josh Hamer in his first outing in his new H2 'Dirty Martini' scoring two thirds and Chris Brown (always the last person to get afloat at an H2 event) scoring a good second place in race 2.
After 3 races Ian was on 6 points, with Josh on 8 points and Richard Leftley on 11. With one discard allowed Ian was not quite home and dry. Richard had now got in the groove and in a decent breeze he won race 4. Tim was also finding the slightly stronger wind to his liking and notched up second place, with Dave Barker in third and Richard Le Mare fourth. Josh decided not to sail the last race.
The final results were close! So Ian Dawson is the 2023 H2 Inland Champion; a fantastic achievement for the oldest H2 helm, especially when added to his runner-up place in the H2 Nationals last year.
The H2 Class Association wishes to thank the QMSC officers, members and staff for a very well run event. A special mention to the volunteers who helped launch and recover the boats - with the steep sides of the reservoir that was not an easy task for singlehanders.
Overall Results:
Pos Sail No Helm CLUB R1 R2 R3 R4 Pts
1 152 IAN DAWSON Warsash SC 1 1 4 [6] 6
2 145 RICHARD LEFTLEY Bowmoor SC 2 4 [5] 1 7
3 159 JOSH HAMER Glossop SC 3 3 2 DNC 8
4 105 TIM GARVIN Queen Mary SC 4 [9] 3 2 9
5 148 DAVE BARKER Draycote SC [10] 6 1 3 10
6 127 CHRIS BROWN RORC 7 2 OCS 7 16
7 156 RICHARD LE MARE Castle Cove SC 8 [11] 6 4 18
8 106 LAWRENCE BAKER Deben YC 5 5 [9] 8 18
9 102 IAN LITTLE Thorpe Bay YC 6 8 7 [9] 21
10 136 DAVID BATCHELOR Isle of Man SC 9 [12] 10 5 24
11 151 CRAIG TURNER Tata Steel SC 11 7 15 DNC 33
12 120 ANNE GATES Silver Wing SC 12 10 11 RET 33
13 162 NICK WAPSHOTT Roadford Lake SC DNC 14 8 15 37
14 158 ROBERT TATE Queen Mary SC 13 13 DNC DNC 41
No comments:
Post a Comment