Hampton SC Regatta

The weather was ideal for the Hampton SC Regatta on Saturday and Sunday; dry and warm with a fairly steady SW 10-15 knt wind., at Hampton this gives a run down the river.

On Saturday Rodger Wheeler and Fin Gloyn, in the Club Graduate, Richard Cannon and Bob Gloyn in ST368 and Bryan Clempents in his Graduate were escorted to Hampton by the AQSC safety boat.

The main support at Hampton SC is for class racing with GP14 (8 entries), Merlin Rocket (11 entries), Enterprise (6 entries) and Laser (6 entries). Our boats entered the Handicap Class and the only other entries were a Byte and a Solo. Hampton SC have very simple courses with just an upstream and downstream mark taken to port; different classes use a different combination of marks; we used the nearest marks so didn’t have to go past the islands.

Both races were excellent although Bryan, with out a crew, found it rather windy even without a jib and capsized on a gybe near the end of the first race; he didn’t sail in the afternoon race. In the first race Rodger’s sail was caught by a passing boat and the batons pulled out; fortunately it was the old sail and Rodger had the new sail with him for the rest of the races.

Room was found to leave our three boats on the Hampton ‘Island’ so we didn’t need to take them back to Aquarius overnight.

On Sunday we were joined by Mike Baker and Keith Hatton in ST369. The day was very similar to Saturday, except there were three races and a little bit less wind. Bob and Fin weren’t available and Rodger found a couple of Hampton SC children who wanted to sail. Holly, a 8 year old girl, crewed for Richard and her younger brother, Jack, crewed for Rodger. Holly was very keen and half way through the first race asked if she could crew in the afternoon.

Bryan crewed for Rodger in the afternoon. For the first race the top mark was changed to further upstream, alongside Platt’s Eyot, giving a dramatic reduction in the wind; fortunately it was changed back for the last race. In the last race Richard let Holly have the helm for the runs downstream and she coped very well. Richard won and Rodger was second in the handicap fleet.

Many thanks to Hampton SC for giving us an excellent couple of days sailing and they made us extremely welcome. Throughout both days there was an excellent spread of food. Although they only have a small handicap fleet the other classes were well supported and there were a lot of young families around.

Richard Cannon