2015 Met & Southern area Vane 36 Championship.

Seven boats turned out for the Met & Southern Championship, with a forecast of light winds from the East or North-East.  The fleet included three generations of the Wyeth family, with Lewis racing his Hollom designed 36 as skipper for the first time.  Also sailing was Anthony Warren, still jet-lagged from the flight back from the west coast of America, where he had been racing in the bi-ennial UK/US Vane 36 regatta.  Congratulations are due, because he won the first event at Santiago.  Race officer for the day at Gosport was Alan Oxlade, who had travelled from the rather less exotic climes of Maidenhead, but still quite a trek to help out by running our day's racing.

Early boards saw skippers struggling with the super-fluky winds, although with top rigs the boats were sailing at a decent speed.  The lee of the clubhouse was doing it's usual impersonation of the Bermuda Triangle; boats finding their way into the area took an awful long time to get out again.   Lewis started well by taking five points out of Jacque and Eric, but then the pink boat got into gear and summarily removed five points from Mervyn and Paul, and then Shaun.  Roger sailing a Sybora also made a good start and by lunchtime, was joint leader with Jacque and Eric sailing their Diversion.

In the afternoon the wind had settled somewhat, with the odd twitch to the south-east thrown in making conditions tricky. The only one brave enough to fly a spinnaker was Shaun who proceeded to demonstrate just how it should be done. Anthony went really well downwind winning all but one of the boards in that direction. Graham, sailing a Hollom design, changed sails for the afternoon and immediately put together a trio of straight five point heats, but he hadn't enjoyed the flukier morning. Consequently, in the end, Mervyn and Paul's Mike Dann designed Diversion powered through and they become the Met and Southern District Vane 36 champions for 2015 by a narrow margin of three points.

It was a really enjoyable day's racing, lengthened, but made possible, by the need for crews covering for each others boats.  My thanks to everyone for making it a memorable day, and to Allan Oxlade for being a jolly good race officer! 

Mervyn

Mervyn Cook and Paul Edwards 23 points.

Graham Wyeth 20 points

Anthony Warren 16 points

Jacque Cook and Eric Meighen 15 points

Roger Cole 13 points

Lewis Wyeth 10 points

Shaun Wyeth 8 points