A fleet of 22 International Moths turned out for the second Noble Marine Grand Prix event of the year at Parkstone Sailing Club, Poole over the weekend of 5th & 6th April. After a winter of training, in anticipation for the UK Summer Worlds, this would be a good indication of current form on open water. A south west breeze of force 2 to 4 made launching easier than expected and the fleet got off to a clean start at the later start time of 1pm.

First race the lead was left open to Rob Greenhalgh when Ben ‘Patonator’ fell out the boat on the tack into the mark. Jason Belben challenged Rob but was overhauled to windward with Simon Hiscocks third. The mothist worst nightmare came true for Tom Offer when the horizontal of his main foil parted company and sunk, but with good seamanship he managed to get back to base, get new foil and make the second race.

The second race saw a close first beat with Rob and Jason until he was thrown out the boat rounding the windward mark and shortly after Ricky Tagg demonstrated the same manoeuvre. Rob went on to claim the race, Simon second, Tom third and Dan Vincent fourth.

The third race Ben changed the pecking order managing to hold Rob off for 3 laps when he made some uncustomary mistakes. Eventually Rob pulled through again, Ben second and Jason 3rd.

With a poor forecast for Sunday the Race Officer added a fourth race but this didn’t change Rob’s dominance over the day with Simon taking ground out of him but settling for second and Jason third after Tom went for a swim downwind.

Half of the Mothies enjoyed an evening at Le Batteau in the company of Rod Harris, one of the local sponsors of the event. Rod has been a Mothie for many years, who has temporarily retired from Mothing with a bad hip. However, after spending Saturday on the water filming the boats from a RIB, Rod’s been inspired to order an Exocet!

The Sunday was as predicted very windy and with the fleet happy that they had a good series of races the previous day, the Race Officer abandoned.

 

 

 

 

Thanks must go to WHY Jewellers (Rod Harris) for supplying the sapphires awarded to the first three sailors and Parkstone’s local Chandlery –Quay West, Magic Marine and Noble Marine for sponsoring what was a well run and enjoyable event.

Overall

1st Rob Greenhalgh
2nd Simon Hiscocks
3rd Jason Belben
4th Ben Paton
5th Tom Offer
6th Dan Vincent

1st Lady Katherine Knight

1st Home Build Phil Oligario

The Quaywest Moth Anchor went to Tom “Special” Offer for losing his foil and showing us all that his accident at last year’s Worlds hasn’t put him off starting on port tack at all!

Full results at: 2014 Parkstone YC Moth Open Results