MPSC Yachting Championships '07
3rd October - 5th October

In The Solent...

In 2006 the Championships were reduced to only one day’s racing (three races) due to too much wind. This year’s championships also suffered from not enough wind, but the race officer (Dave Nicholls) managed to get four races in, two on each day. This allowed the teams to discard their worst race result in working out the points.

It was Andrew Rooke of the Met Police and his team, sailing their yacht Sunsail 9206, that mastered the light wind conditions best and came first overall out of the 21 boats taking part. They won races 2 and 4, and came fourth in race 1, accumulating 6 points. Only one point behind them was George Wright and his team of firemen from East Sussex in Sunsail 9216 (they were also runners-up in 2006). They won the first race, came third in race 3 and fourth in race 4. Nigel French and his team from the Met, sailing Sunsail 9202, finished third overall with 9 points. Another Met team, lead by Dean Ingledew, sailing Sunsail 9215 came fourth with 10 points. So the results were very close.

21 teams representing police forces or fire brigades took part, all sailing identical 37-foot Jeaneau yachts chartered from Sunsail of Port Solent. Visiting police teams came from the City of London, Devon & Cornwall, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Warwickshire. All the teams gathered at Gunwharf Quay on the evening of Wednesday, 3rd October to be welcomed by the organiser, Edward Piggin, and to be briefed by David Nicholls, the Race Officer. They were warned to be ready for an eight o’clock start on Thursday. The forecast was for light winds.

Thursday:
Dave Nicholls was using the 35-foot Starlight yacht Sovereign of Broadway as the committee boat. It had been motored over to Gunwharf Quay from its base at Mercury Marina on the Hamble River on Wednesday evening without any trouble. But when its skipper, Phil Onslow, tried to start its engine early on Thursday morning there was no joy. Fortunately Sovereign was moored alongside another MPSC yacht – Sapphire of Broadway – crewed by Nick and Trish Ferris. So it was a fairly simple job for them to tow the committee boat out to the start of the first race at the navigation mark called Browndown.

Once the race officer had the committee boat anchored near Browndown, he set up a triangular course between that mark, North Ryde Middle and Peel Bank. He got the fleet away for the start of Race 1 at 08:25 in about 8 knots of wind from the west. There was only one yacht over the line at the start and that was Sunsail 9213 sailed by team Roger Glass of the Met. Unfortunately the 8- knot wind did not hold for very long, and the race developed into a drifting match. It took the leading yacht almost 90 minutes to sail that first triangle. It was the East Sussex Fire Brigade team that led the fleet on rounding Browdown. At that stage they were two and a half minutes ahead of the second team – Andrew Rooke of the Met. The third boat was manned by another fire brigade team led by Mick Norman in Sunsail 9208. The fourth yacht to round the mark was sailed by team Nigel French (Met), and they were closely followed by team Dean Ingledew (Met). It was easy to spot and follow the progress of team Roger Glass (which made a premature start) because they were using a ‘non-Sunsail’ spinnaker under a special dispensation, a white one boldly displaying the words "Top’s Pizza" on it in large black letters. Although they were the last boat to start the race they had made their way up through the fleet to 8th place by the time they rounded the Browndown mark.

Meanwhile "Sea Start" had been called out to Sovereign of Broadway to try and sort out the trouble with the engine. The diagnosis was that the starter motor was defective, but there was no replacement immediately available. So the race officer transferred all the race management equipment on board Sapphire of Broadway, and then had Sovereign towed back to Mercury Marina with Nick and Tricia aboard. They later brought out another MPSC yacht – Spirit of Broadway – to be used as the committee boat.

So it was in Sapphire that Dave Nicholls up-anchored and motored up to the cardinal mark North Ryde Middle. The fleet was making such slow progress that he shortened the course of the race at that mark. The first yacht to finish was Sunsail 9216 sailed by George Wright and his fire-fighters from Sussex, in 2 hours 19 minutes. They won this race significantly, finishing over eight minutes ahead of everyone else. The second boat home was Sunsail 9202 sailed by team Nigel French (Met). They had a two-minute lead on team Dean Ingledew (Met), with Graham Cook at the helm. The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh boats were all sailed by Met teams, led by Andrew Rook, Steve Bentley, Nigel Foster and Steven Thorpe respectively. The next two yachts almost finished in a dead heat, but the Sussex Police team, led by Alan Costello, just pipped team Roger Glass (Met) for eighth place.

Thursday was turning out to be a bright sunny autumnal day. The only thing that spoiled it for the sailors was the lack of wind. After all the competitors had finished Race 1 the race officer moved the committee boat to the red racing mark RYA Yachtmaster and then announced a 30-minute break before the start of Race 2. Some of the teams who had anchored down-tide from the start line failed to anticipate the start time and were taken by surprise when the start sequence was eventually begun by the race officer. The class flag came down and the race was begun with a clean start at 12:25, with yachts 9221, 9211, 9229 and 9213 leading the fleet in the windward leg towards Southampton Water and the mark called Coronation. The wind was very light and it took some of the less experienced crews as long as 24 minutes to actually start the race. The fleet seemed to split into two factions, with one group heading for the north shore and the others staying in mid channel heading straight towards Calshot. Progress for both sections of the fleet was very slow and it took the first yacht 84 minutes to reach Coronation. It then headed south towards the mark Royal Thames. The leading two yachts at this stage came from the ones who had stayed out in mid-channel. The wind dropped off almost completely on this second leg of the race and all the race officer could do was to take up station at Royal Thames in order to shorten the race. But the leading yacht did not reach the finish-line until 14:38. It was Sunsail 9206 sailed by team Andrew Rooke (Met). They finished a comfortable 6 minutes ahead of the rest of the fleet. The second boat home was Sunsail 9202 sailed by team Nigel French (Met) who finished 6.5 minutes in front of the third yacht – Sunsail 9221 sailed by the Sussex Police team led by Alan Costello. Team Roger Glass in Sunsail 9213 was 4th and the Warwickshire Police team led by Henry Scutt was 5th. Only twelve yachts made the finish before the 45-minute cut-off time (after the first finisher) came into force. Sadly yachts 9210, manned by Met Traffic Patrols, and 9203, sailed by team Mark Saunders, got within spitting distance of the finish line when they were called ‘out of time’.

The race officer considered that there was not enough wind to start a third race and therefore declared that racing was ended for the day. That allowed the competitors to switch on their engines and head straight for Cowes and the River Medina to prepare for the evening social function to be held at the Folly Inn on the river itself.

Friday:
Early on Friday morning Spirit of Broadway left its moorings at the Folly Inn in the cold light of dawn with the haunting cry of the curlew echoing in the background and headed down the Medina to Cowes, and then out into The Solent. There was a 10-knot wind blowing from the north and it looked promising for a good day’s racing. However, no sooner had the Sunsail fleet caught up with the race officer than the wind dropped to about 5 knots. The tide was still flowing westwards. In order to reduce the strength of the tide the race officer moved the committee boat along to the racing mark Daks and set up a start line there for race 3. The class flag came down at 09:00 and the race was on. Well it was for most of the fleet, but for Sunsail yachts 9213 (Roger Glass), 9211 (Dave little) and 9206 (Andrew Rooke) it was not so. They were recalled for starting prematurely. It was the Hertfordshire Police Team in Sunsail 9212 and the London Fire Brigade in Sunsail 9207 that made the best start and took the lead on this windward leg towards the cardinal mark South Ryde Middle. There was very little wind at this stage and it swung from north to west, but the fleet did have the advantage of the west-bound tide. However the tide - what little there was - became a disadvantage on the spinnaker leg to the second mark of the course, Craftinsure Dot Com and the race once again developed into a drifting match. The drift was enlivened for some of the teams when a large car-transporter ship gave a long blast on its hooter and then sailed right through the middle of the Sunsail fleet. That was soon followed by another large cargo ship, which took a similar action. Some time later a large naval auxiliary ship sailed the other way through the crowd of spinnaker-clad yachts, but without the blast on the hooter.

It was obvious that this race would have to be shortened in order to finish within the time limit and get in another race. So Dave Nicholls set up a finish line at the racing mark Craftinsure Dot Com , and flew the "S" flag. No sooner had he done so than it could be seen that fresh wind was coming in from the direction of Portsmouth. Ripples on the water slowly advanced towards the committee boat. But the leading Sunsail yacht seemed not to need any extra wind. It was leading a charmed life and looked as if it had its own private wind driving it towards the finish line. It was Sunsail 9207 being sailed by the London Fire Brigade team lead by Nick Harding. It crossed the line at 11:16, over 6 minutes ahead of the second boat, which was Sunsail 9215 (Met team lead by Dean Ingledew. They were the first yacht to make use of the fresh north-easterly wind that reached them at 11:21. They finished 2 minutes 46 seconds ahead of the Sussex Fire Brigade team in Sunsail 9216. 31 seconds behind them came the 4th boat – the Devon & Cornwall team in Sunsail 9219. The first few yachts crept over the finish line, but as soon as the NE wind reached the fleet, the boats were able to drop their spinnakers and then romp home in great style. Although they had been well spread out earlier in the race, they all finished Race 3 well within the 45-minute time limit.

Now that the race officer had a 10-knot wind to play with, he was a happy man and was eager to get the 4th race under way, and yet he wanted to keep things simple in case the wind dropped off again. So he set up a start line between the committee boat and a dan buoy and had Craftinsure Dot Com as the windward mark, the only other mark of the course. The fleet would sail around that mark and the dan buoy for three laps. The wind had also put new life into the sailors because they had all become very competitive at the start. The race officer had to abandon the first start because of the large stampede of boats heading straight for the rear of the committee boat. Then there were so many boats over the line at the second start that the race officer declared a general recall. The race officer’s warning of a black flag start if the there was another general recall seemed to cool the ardour of the racers and Race 4 got off to a clean start at the third attempt. But there were some close shaves at the committee boat end of the line. The closest was made by Sunsail 9204 (City of London Police). It actually collided with the fenders being trailed by the committee boat, and it had re-round it. It was two Met teams in Sunsail yachts 9213 (Roger Glass) and 9206 (Andrew Rooke), and the Sussex Fire Brigade in Sunsail 9216, that made the best start and took the lead as they beat towards the windward mark.

The sun was shining and the wind was blowing. Conditions were ideal for Race 4 and the teams were enjoying some fine racing. Slick spinnaker handling was the order of the day and it was easy to pick out the more experienced crews by watching them hoist and lower their spinnakers. Team Nigel Foster (Sunsail 9231) and team Andrew Rooke (Sunsail 9206) lead the fleet at the start of leg 3 of this race. Andrew Rooke held that lead right to the finish at CRAFTINSURE.COM at 14:04. They crossed the finish line over 2 minutes ahead of the second yacht – Sunsail 9213 (Roger Glass). Sussex Police in Sunsail 9221 were 3rd, only 19 seconds behind Roger, and 53 seconds ahead of the Sussex Fire Brigade in Sunsail 9216. 26 seconds behind them came the 5th boat – Sunsail 9215 (Dean Ingledew). Only 10 seconds separated the 5th and 6th yachts. The 6th yacht over the line was Sunsail 9231 (Nigel Foster of the Met). 20 of the yachts finished within 11 minutes. One of the back markers finished with its spinnaker streaming from the masthead like a battle flag. There was no more racing that day, so the yachts were free to head back to Port Solent. Many of the teams were happy that a 4th race had been held because it meant they could discard their ‘did not finish’ penalty points in Race 2. The prize-giving was held at the Sunsail base at Port Solent at 17:00 on Friday. The prizes were presented by the Commodore of the MPSC, who was a competitor himself in these championships.

Len Gooch
 

Cups awarded as below: -

MPSC Cup (1st Met boat) - Nigel French

Commodores Cup (2nd Met boat) - Dean Ingledew

Vice Commodores Cup (1st overall) - Andy Rooke

Runner Up Open - Nigel French

OCU Cup - Nigel French (Barking SCD)

Trevor Edmonds Memorial Trophy (Sailing School Boat) - Mark Saunders

West Midlands Trophy (1st Constabulary/Emergency Sevices boat) - George Wright (Sussex Fire Brigade)

Most Persistent - David Hartshorn (Met Cadets)

Dave McCarthy Memorial Trophy (Most Improved) - Roger Glass

The 'Championship'07' is raced in six categories:

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Pictures from Race Four
 

Organiser, 2007:
Edward Piggin
18 Meadow Lane, Hamble, Hants. SO31 4RD
Home: -02380 454862
Mobile: -07712232690
Email:- Edward@piggin.freeserve.co.uk