UK National Police Offshore Sailing Championships 2008
This page provides the report and results of the Police National Offshore regatta.

2008

There are some 334 pictures but viewing is 'restricted' and it will be necessary for skippers to contact Pete Walters direct at: pete@petewalters.plus.com in order to obtain the web page address.

Police Sport UK Offshore Sailing Championships 2008

Day Two - the Passage Race - Yachts negotiate the long run back from the Nab Tower.

The event was hosted by the Nottinghamshire Police Sailing Section between the 18th and 23rd of May 2008.

Venue was Cowes the Isle of Wight using matched Sunsail Sunfast 37 yachts.

The 27 teams from forces across the UK and Ireland met at Port Solent Sunday 18th for the boat collection from Sunsail staff. The hosts briefed the crews and skippers during the evening ready for racing the following day.

The Race Officer Dave Nicholls and his assistant Bev Moss decided to start the first race in the middle of the Solent for the first of 3 races scheduled for the first day.

The first start saw the Notts 'A' Team skippered by Pete Walters take and early lead and win the first race. The weather conditions were ideal with a force 2-3 bright sunshine but cool. Several boats finishing very close together with numerous shouts of water and protest being heard as boats jostled for the positions. Dean Ingledew of the Met Police and Garth Henry of the PSNI finishing 2nd and 3rd.

The race officer did not hang about getting the 2nd race away for the day, starting very soon after the last boat of the first race had finished.

The conditions remained ideal with a similar course set for the fleet but soon after the start the breeze died with the fleet split between going either on the island side or the mainland side of the course against the foul tide. The island side paid with Ian Bedford of the Cleveland 'B' team getting to the first mark first and was not to be overtaken as the race officer shortened the course after the 2nd mark. John Love from Strathclyde 'B' coming 2nd closely followed by Dave Old and Pete Walters of Lancashire and Nottinghamshire 3rd and 4th.

The conditions became more settled for the final race of the day with the fleet having a short beat against the tide before a longer leg downwind to a buoy outside Cowes. Pete Walters just reached the first mark first just ahead of Dean Ingledew and David Lavender of Kent for the broad reach/run all neck and neck, Pete Walters managed to hold off Dean Ingledew (Helm, Graham Cook) to the next buoy for a short beat and final run to the finish. On the final leg Graham kept taking the wind and slowing the Notts boat who on the final gybe for the finish ended up with a broken spinnaker pole end (2nd Spinnaker pole break of the day) and limped over the line under main alone just ahead of the Met team by 1ft. Kent finishing very shortly after.

The race for the showers at the Cowes Yacht Haven then followed with the Notts. team just getting to the cubicles before the rest of the teams landed.

As 3 races had been completed the Organisers had introduced 2 additional features to the week: the buddy trophy and 3 fleet racing. With the results of the first 3 races being counted the fleet was split into 2 fleets with a draw being completed to draw the teams from the front of the fleet with those at the bottom, the results from the combined scores for the rest of the week being counted for the buddies with the buddies on the lowest combined scores being the winners of the buddy trophy. This was to encourage the teams to get together and share knowledge and hopefully get the whole fleet racing closer together.

The fleets were also split into three - 9 teams in each fleet. The skippers were issued with different flags to display on their boats so that other boats within their fleet were easily identified and the competitors could see who they were racing against within their fleet. At the end of the event prizes would be awarded to the winners of the 2nd and 3rd fleet with the first fleet taking the overall prize for the event.

After this had been briefed the skippers were told that the following day (Tuesday) would be a passage race, starting about 10am. The crews adjourned to the local hostelries for refreshment.

On time the fleet started the passage race, the conditions being force 3-4 with quite a chop the PSNI were the first to the first mark with 2 Met boats and Notts 'A' in a pack following for a short run to the 2nd mark.

Positions were maintained for the next beat out into the channel, but Notts had the Genoa halyard snap stalling them for at least 10 minutes whilst the sail was lowered a new temporary halyard attached and sailed raised again.

The author did not see how positions changed at the front of the fleet being too far behind but did see Cleveland 'A' (Tony Riordan) team round the Nab Tower in the channel for the 13 mile run to the next mark in the Solent. Followed by the PSNI and Met. Team (Dean Ingledew) apparently PSNI got very close to the Cleveland 'A' who just got over the line 2ft in-front of the PSNI and the Met. The boats log indicated that the fleet had sailed over 50 miles during the day. Quite a late finish with teams finally getting into Cowes about 8pm.

Wednesday was back to shorter races with 2 scheduled for the day. Conditions again were ideal sunny but cool force 3-4. the race officer again wasted no time in getting the fleet off the start line with Garth Henry of the PSNI leading the race from start to finish, behind battles for positions went on between the Notts 'A' team and the Met police who on this occasion beat Notts over the line by half a boat length to take 5th place and Notts 6th.
2nd going to Stuart Jenkins of the Met. Police 3rd to Nigel French of the Met. Police and 4th to David Lavender of Kent.
Race 2 of the day again round the cans with the Notts 'A' team again taking line honours followed by the Henry Scutt of Warwickshire who incidentally were the buddy team with the Notts. 'A' boat. 3rd going to Dean Ingledew of the Met. another close finish.

During Wednesday evening the Offshore Sailing Section held the AGM on The Hard at Cowes Yacht Haven with 50/60 participating in the meeting.

Thursday, again another perfect sailing day with the conditions being ideal. The fleet were getting closer and taking any advantage could give great dividends but the same teams always seemed to be getting to the front of the fleet. At the first mark Dean Ingledew lead the pack but went very deep on the run to the next mark against the foul tide, Notts who had rounded in 6th place at the first mark went on a broad reach keeping the boat travelling fast ¾ along the run gybed across onto port and overtook all the boats and went into the 2nd mark with a good lead which was maintained for the rest of the race. The PSNI over 2 minutes behind in 2nd and again Warwickshire, Notts. Buddy coming 3rd. and Stuart Jenkins following.

2nd race of the day saw the wind lessen with a foul tide most of the fleet struggled to get over the start line. The boats were hardly making any ground against the foul tide but Henry Scutt of Warwickshire took the early lead with Notts and Met. police chasing. The decision to go for the mark was a critical choice as the boats were trying to keep in the shallower water which has less tide before going across deeper water and more foul tide to reach the mark. Warwickshire overstood the mark with Dean Ingledew rounding first followed by Warwickshire and Notts rounding together. Notts managed to go over Warwickshire and put their spinnaker up for the final leg which had been shortened by the race officer due to the lack of wind and the proposed social event due at 7.30 that evening.
Met. winning with Notts, Warwickshire following.

All the teams then attended a BBQ at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club for the formal Social event for the week. A fair amount of money was raised for Cancer Research; the event's chosen charity.

The race officer announced that the final race would take place on Friday morning. With this news it was clear that the Notts team had won the event as even with not sailing the final race the two closest teams could still not beat them overall for the event. However, dependant on the last races results, the overall positions for 2nd and 3rd was not yet decided.

Friday morning again was an ideal sailing day but the tide was taking the fleet over the line which meant a general recall and the black flag, if over the line within the last minute of the countdown to the start the team would be disqualified. It appears the Met. team of Dean Ingledew took their opportunity to keep their 2nd place overall by taking both themselves and the PSNI over the line before the start - disqualifying both.

Friday and it's countdown time for the morning's race.

The rest of the fleet started with Cleveland 'A' rounding the first mark leading, Warwickshire, Kent and Notts 'A' following closely for the 3 mile run to the next mark, a tactical battle started with Notts managing to sneak ahead and round the 2nd mark in front, maintaining the lead to the finish in front of Kent and Roger Glass of another Met boat who had gone out into the tide on the last beat overtaking both Warwickshire and Cleveland 'A'.

The boats then headed back to Port Solent for the boat handover and the prize giving.

Prizes:
The winners of fleet 3 was Henry Scutt of Warwickshire,
Winners of fleet 2 was David Lavender of Kent,
The Buddy team winners were Henry Scutt of Warwickshire and Pete Walters of Notts A with a scoring total of 26 points against the 2nd place of 55 points.
The overall positions, 3rd Garth Henry of PSNI with 24 points to count. 1 race win.
2nd place overall was Dean Ingledew with 21 points. 1 race win.
Overall first place was Pete Walters of Notts A with 11 points to count and 5 race wins.
Prizes were awarded to all the race winners

This being the 5th consecutive year the Notts. team has won the event overall.

The event was a changed format to previous years with the teams being based at one location rather than moving from port to port, the Notts organisers wanted to try and present an event based on Cowes week, due to sponsorship from Boots the Chemist, Gill of Nottingham, the Police Credit Union and Fortec Computers the organisers were able to supply each competitor with Gill products, sun cream, breakfast rolls on two mornings and a can of beer after each day's racing.
Feedback from the competitors indicated that they enjoyed the format including the buddy and fleet racing, this year being one of the few years where no racing was lost due to poor weather or having to be at a specific port on a particular day. The full proposed racing programme was completed, it has to be said that we were very fortunate with the weather all week which had no small part in making the event a success.

Notts Police Sailing Section, the organisers would like to thank all competitors for their participation, in making the event a success.

© P.W.
 

Details on the National Police Offshores, 2008 are no longer published at:  www.policesportukoffshore.info  which is now defunct...

Any enquiries relating to the above event should be directed to Helen Neaverson.

 Results of previous National Offshore regattas can now be viewed via the 'Stats' Section

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