HSC Regatta Richard Cannon

Hampton Sailing Club Regatta 30 June/1 July 2007

By Richard Cannon

The Hampton Regatta had a terrible weather forecast; very wet. Fortunately, although there was some rain, it didn’t spoil the event.

On Saturday Richard Cannon in his Signet with crew Rodger Wheeler, and Bryan Clements in his Graduate entered. The 5-10 knot South wind although shifty wasn’t fluky like at Aquarius and the sailing was good, although at times it was difficult to make way against the 1-2 knot current.

Sunday was very different; the 15 to 25 knot (force 4 to 6) SW wind was extremely gusty and fluky.

Rodger took his Bosun and Tony Hopkins crewed for Richard. In the morning a HSC junior member crewed for Rodger and Bryan retired. In the afternoon Bryan crewed for Rodger.

The handicap fleet of 11 boats included 3 Comet Versas, 2 Lasers, a Solo and 2 Toppers plus our Bosun, Signet and Graduate. The other class starts were GP14 (7 boats), Merlin (8) and Enterprise (11), a total of 37 boats gave a very crowded reach.

Sailing was very exciting with many capsizes, but none for Aquarius boats. In the handicap fleet Richard and Tony won the 1st afternoon race and were 3rd overall, Rodger and Bryan were 5th overall.