Glancing at the forecast for the weekend on the Windy app revealed plenty of purple flashes of gusts in the region of force 6 to 7, perfect for the kitesurfers that the app originally catered for but rather more alarming for Punt Club sailors dusting off the cobwebs of the winter off-season. Fortunately, in the 24 hours or so before the event, a window in the weather of a few hours on Saturday morning appeared, giving a building Southerly breeze which would be testing but mostly manageable for the fifteen entries.
A course was set to cover the whole expanse of the broad with a long beat from the pontoon up to 'D' just to the west of the Island with a pair of high-powered reaches up to 'A' and over to 'N' before a long run down towards '1'. As ever, we had a range of entries from three Fevas to four Punts, giving a near 45-minute delta from the first to the last starters. The first lap saw a good battle between the two lead Fevas, crewed by 'Team E' of Mark and Ella Elson along with Emily Drew and Henry Drew and Finn Elson in Purple Pirate.
Next to start were the two 2000s, followed by the YBODs, the Yeoman and the Wayfarer. The strong wind suited the asymmetric spinnakers on the Fevas and 2000s, allowing them to plane all the way down the broad, carefully managing the gybes ('fast is safe!'). Gav Page and Camilla Craker-Horton appeared the stronger of the 2000s and looked the most likely to narrow the enormous gap to the Fevas, now more comfortably led by Team E.
The first of the Punts to set off was Decoy, helmed by multiple time winner of the Barton Bunny, Simon Clayton, this year crewed by Rosanna Sawyer. The pair of Hardchines Redwing and Pipit set off soon after with the Morrison Cormorant being required to wait an agonising 6 minutes more. By this point, the gusts were well into the mid 20kts range.
Normally in the case of a pursuit race with a building wind, it is advantageous for the boats starting later as they have proportionally more of their race going fast compared with the earlier starters. For the Punts however, the name of the game was really survival and keeping the masthead pointing broadly in the direction of the atmosphere. Cormorant valiantly opted to fly her spinnaker at the first opportunity, knowing that she needed to go awfully fast to catch Team E who were now a whole two laps ahead. Cormorant however came a cropper in a big gybe near the Catfield dyke. It was the last time we saw any of the punts risk putting their spinnakers up. Ultimately it was Team E who were victorious, followed by Gav and Camilla in the club 2000 with Robert Friend helming YBOD Frosted Orange the first keelboat and third overall. Henry Drew in Purple Pirate put in a great performance in the conditions to be first junior helm. An attritional battle between the two Hardchines with multiple capsizes each was finally decided on the reach from '1' to the spreader mark at 'R' where Jack Drew and his novice crew, Ed, in Pipit could take home the class prize in the dying minutes of the ninety.
Huge congratulations to all the entrants, especially to the 9 who made it to the end and of course to our winners, Mark, Ella and Emily.
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