The Saturday of the Red Funnel Regatta was cancelled due to some windy weather in the Solent. Particular note should be taken to thank the Royal London Yacht Club Race Committee and those driving ribs, who ventured into The Solent for the whole morning to try their hardest to get racing underway. Racing was cancelled around midday, allowing teams to have pub lunches, walks around the island and shopping trips.
Competitors woke up on Sunday to find beautiful blue skies and a light breeze of 5-10 knots from the North. The first race saw a win from Straight Dealer, Nicholas Stagg and his team. It was also a great start to the day from the Youth teams, with 2nd, 3rd and 4th place going to teams from the Etchells Academy. The second race of the day was comfortably won by Tom Abrey on Jolly Roger, who managed to find some favourable wind out on the right of the course, and attempted to lap the rest of the fleet. By the third race, a big right-shift caused the race committee to move the course. This was a challenging race with lots of difficult East to West tide and the arrival of some jet skiers to the course, who seemingly attempted to team-race Strait Dealer. The last race of the day was changed to the trapezoid layout of course N, owing to the strong tide.
This race saw a very condensed fleet with boats changing positions in every leg. Nonetheless, Exabyte won the race, which secured their win for the event. They were closely followed (1 point after discard) by Ice (Andrew Cooper – Corinthian) in 2nd and Royal Dart (Miles Jones) in 3rd, who were also the first Youth Team.
A special thanks goes to the Race Committee for organising a wonderful weekend in shifty weather.