After the light breeze and spring-like conditions for the first race of the Warsash Spring Series, the second Sunday arrived with forecasts of gale force winds, when a dramatically low pressure system affected most of the country. With gusts of up to 35 knots the race was not surprisingly cancelled. But to keep the racing on target, two races were scheduled in for the following Sunday 25th March. 

With conditions varying between 12–20 knots, with not a great amount of sunshine, but a moderate sea state, with the wind initially in the North-East, which swung East and then South-East by midday. Using laid windward marks our course involved windward/leewards from the Stokes Bay shore across the Ryde Middle bank towards Castle Point.

After an excellent start we quickly built up a good lead to our main rivals, the J-133, and the Swan 42.

Leading them both around the course we were pretty confident and happy with the boat performance.  The surprise of the day though was the TP52 which entered for this race. Normally belonging in class Super 0, she won the morning race. 

The second race, we were too enthusiastic which resulted in us having an OCS on the start line.  One other boat looked clearly over the line and we hedged our bets that we would be OK.  An expensive mistake, as we found out 5 minutes later when the other boat returned to the line but the X-ray flag was not lowered. By the time we returned to the line we were trailing the fleet with at least 5 minutes and with only a short 1.5 hour race we had slim changes.

Nevertheless, the boat performed exceptionally well still beating the Swan 42 on handicap and we managed to salvage the race with a fourth place. Overall, we are leading the series with a 7 point total.

 

Jochem Visser

X-Yachts (GB) Ltd