While the rest of the Solent was filled with yachts going around the Isle of Wight, the International Moth fleet were enjoying Stokes Bay at its very best. Four fantastic races were held in cracking conditions.
Chris Rashley continued his extraordinary run with four more bullets to repeat his perfect scoreline from yesterday. Today though was less straightforward as Chris explained, “It was a tougher day for me, I didn’t get off the line quite as cleanly as I did yesterday and I made a couple of mistakes on the starts which put me back a little bit but I fought back through, so today was a much tougher day for me, but I think I sailed better today than yesterday.”
On his tactics for the final day Chris continued, “I only need one race out of three but I want to win all the races. I lost the first race of the regatta so I’m a bit disappointed about that, I came here wanting to win every race, so I definitely want to win the rest.”
Dylan had a better day after sorting some of the teething problems with leaks in his solid-winged Moth, “She’s still presenting a few issues so I’m going to have another go this evening. It wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday but it still made life quite hard out there. The goal for this boat was the Europeans and we really wanted to bring it out for the nationals. It was ready but we didn’t have any time to fix anything or get the boat polished for here, so although it may be a bit frustrating out there, sometimes feeling like there’s more potential left in it, it’s good to be finding the little problems to change for next time.”
On getting used to the new platform Dylan said, “It feels fine now and I’m getting pretty used to it. I had my rig raked back a little bit today which made my life quite hard gybing, but other than that I’m really happy with it. My aim tomorrow is to try and win some races to try and maximise the potential of the boat.”
There’s been a fair amount of chat on sailing forums worldwide about the solid wings on Dylan’s Moth so we asked him where he thinks the future lies. He replied, “Right now I think the future’s solid, but I think it’ll be interesting to see who comes up with a soft-winged version. I think there will be plenty of people having a go at maybe changing their wing angles or aero fairings, but I guess for now I’m saying solid.”
The strength in depth in the International Moth fleet is extraordinary. Former Musto Skiff World Champion Dan Henderson, who’s sitting just inside the top ten at this event said, “My day started off pretty solid, I rounded the top mark 4th in the first race only to tip it in on the finish line where I lost 2 or 3 places. In the second race I rounded the windward mark 4th again but tried to stay out in the chop and just got nailed, rounded the leeward mark in about 10th but I pulled my way back to around 7th.”
On the racing today Dan said, “Glamour conditions, you couldn’t really ask for much more apart from getting a load of boats going around the island out of the way!”
The general improvement in the fleet was backed by Ollie Holden, who was 23rd in the 2014 Worlds at Hayling Island and is currently lying 19th in this championship. Ollie said, “I don’t think I’m sailing too badly, I just think everyone else is sailing extremely well. A couple of years ago I don’t think you would have had more than about 10 boats finishing in conditions like that with the waves. Even with it not being particularly windy, the top mark was fairly rough, so that was quite interesting. There are a few people spending a lot of time in their boats, the boats themselves are becoming more forgiving and people are people are getting a bit more used to what setup they should be using.”
It will take catastrophic gear failure or an utter disaster of a day for Chris Rashley not to win the 2015 Nationals trophy, but with just six points separating the next five, the battle for second overall is definitely on. Watch this space to find out how it all unfolds.
The event is kindly sponsored by Noble Marine, Ronstan and Blueteq.
Results after Day 3: (nine races, 2 discards)
Pos Sail No Helm Club R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 Pts
1 4 Chris Rashley Stokes Bay SC & Royal London YC ‑2 ‑1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
2 3982 Ben Paton Lymington Town SC (DNC) ‑22 2 2 4 2 3 4 2 19
3 4208 Dylan Fletcher WPNSA 1 2 6 ‑20 ‑12 4 2 3 6 24
4 3942 Jason Belben Stokes Bay SC ‑4 4 4 4 2 ‑13 4 2 4 24
5 4147 Mike Lennon Hayling Island SC 3 ‑7 3 3 3 3 ‑5 5 5 25
6 4097 Rory Fitzpatrick NYC / RIYC 7 5 (DNC) 6 5 ‑9 8 6 3 40
7 4062 Jonathan Heathcote Stokes Bay SC 9 6 7 5 7 6 11 (DNC) ‑13 51
8 4309 James McMillan Gurnard SC / Stokes Bay SC ‑10 3 8 9 10 10 7 7 ‑14 54
9 4040 Dan Henderson Stokes Bay SC 6 8 9 7 8 7 ‑10 ‑13 9 54
10 4251 Dan Ward Frensham Pond / Stokes Bay SC 13 ‑37 11 ‑44 13 5 6 8 8 64
11 4099 Ricky Tagg Hayling Island SC 5 11 15 ‑21 6 8 ‑23 15 17 77
12 4115 David Hivey Datchet Water SC 17 19 5 18 9 15 9 ‑24 ‑23 92
13 3940 Penny Clark Stokes Bay SC ‑18 ‑21 12 12 18 14 16 10 16 98
14 4144 Fabien Froesch SNG ‑20 15 13 11 17 12 19 ‑23 11 98
15 4189 Phillip Kasermann SNG 14 20 10 8 ‑24 17 ‑25 17 18 104
16 4301 John Clifton Homeless 16 9 21 ‑25 15 21 ‑30 12 10 104
17 3979 Dan Ellis Yealm YC 15 42 (DNC) ‑47 11 11 13 9 7 108
18 4074 Eelco Boers WV Roerkoning 8 10 (DNC) 24 16 ‑35 12 19 20 109
19 4149 Ollie Holden Hayling Island SC 12 18 ‑24 15 19 20 17 14 ‑22 115
20 4096 Tim Penfold Hayling Island SC 23 ‑31 26 14 23 18 15 11 ‑32 130
21 3776 Philippe Schiller SNG ‑35 16 14 10 14 ‑45 31 20 26 131
22 4037 Jason Russell Hayling Island SC ‑24 23 22 22 ‑26 16 14 18 24 139
23 4060 Neil Baker Hayling Island SC 27 25 23 19 ‑41 22 ‑36 16 12 144
24 4067 Cameron Stewart Hayling Island SC 29 17 16 16 ‑30 23 ‑39 27 21 149
25 4049 Giovanni Galeotti RYCB 11 13 31 (DNC) 29 (DNC) 18 34 19 155
26 4075 Doug Pybus Queen Mary SC ‑31 ‑28 18 23 21 19 27 22 28 158
27 3922 Kyle Stoneham Thorpe Bay YC 19 14 19 ‑37 28 ‑41 20 35 34 169
28 4277 Jeremy Hartley Stokes Bay SC 22 30 20 26 ‑32 26 ‑33 26 31 181
29 3943 Richard Edwards Parkstone YC 26 29 27 ‑49 20 34 28 25 ‑35 189
30 4100 Alex Koukourakis Eastbourne Sov SC 25 ‑43 (DNC) 27 22 30 35 28 25 192
31 4065 Anthony Rezzoug ASNQ 33 32 ‑35 33 31 ‑39 22 29 15 195
32 3959 Alex Adams Castle Cove SC 38 26 25 ‑48 (DNC) 25 24 30 27 195
33 4043 Matthew Lea Grafham Water SC ‑36 24 30 31 ‑33 31 29 32 29 206
34 4299 Chris Clarke Thorpe Bay YC 32 ‑34 32 28 27 24 ‑34 31 33 207
35 4121 James Phare Queen Mary SC 21 12 17 17 25 (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC 212
36 4280 Constantijn Weber WSV Muiderberg 40 35 28 ‑50 (DNC) 27 37 36 30 233
37 4072 Tom Lambert Wilsonian SC 30 27 29 45 (DNC) 32 32 39 (DNC) 234
38 4233 Dominic Hutton Queen Mary SC ‑50 ‑48 43 38 42 29 26 33 39 250
39 4281 Nic Streatfeild Rutland SC 34 39 36 41 (DNC) 43 41 40 (DNC) 274
40 3715 Chris Jeeves Homeless 43 36 38 ‑46 39 42 40 ‑45 37 275
41 4307 Hans Rasmussen Troense Badelaug 37 33 (DNF) 32 37 44 45 50 (DNC) 278
42 3674 Simon Grundy Homeless ‑45 ‑45 39 42 36 40 42 42 38 279
43 3914 Ole Frey Sonderborg YC ‑47 40 40 29 (DNC) 47 44 41 40 281
44 4344 Ross Harvey Hayling Island SC 46 (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC 28 21 21 48 284
45 4162 Steve McLean Hayling Island SC / LSC ‑49 41 34 34 (DNC) 48 48 47 41 293
46 3794 Menno Berens Marina Muiderzand ‑48 47 42 35 38 ‑51 46 44 43 295
47 3945 Eddie Bridle Brightlingsea SC 44 38 33 30 34 (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC 299
48 412 Leigh Albrecht Queen Mary SC 28 46 (DNC) 13 35 (DNC) DNC DNC DNC 302
49 4254 David Smithwhite Hayling Island SC 41 44 37 43 43 37 (DNC) (DNC) DNC 305
50 3980 Graham Simmonds Hayling Island SC 39 (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC 38 38 37 36 308
51 3924 Robert Pike Eastbourne Sov SC ‑52 49 41 40 (DNC) 50 43 46 44 313
52 3190 Chris Tilbrook Starcross YC 51 (DNC) 44 36 40 ‑53 50 48 49 318
53 4343 James Sainsbury Grafham Water SC 55 50 (DNC) (DNC) DNC 33 51 38 47 334
54 4126 Luka Dogan Marina Kastela 53 51 45 39 (DNC) 49 (DNC) DNC 46 343
55 3756 Andrew Jarvis Oxford SC (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC DNC 36 47 43 42 348
56 3870 Eddie Gatehouse Hayling Island SC 54 (DNC) (DNC) 51 DNC 52 49 49 45 360
57 3720 Bruce Spratt Thorpe Bay YC 42 (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC 46 DNC DNC DNC 388
58= 398 Cameron Harris Parkstone YC (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC 420
58= 3131 Guy Raynes Weston SC (DNC) (DNC) DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC DNC 420