Hollowell - Nearly....

So with me driving through drizzle and James coming down from up tut north we both managed to arrive @ Hollowell in time to be faced with not a massive amount of breeze and no bacon sarnies... not a great start. The usual suspects had come down for another leg of the double-chine.. Youngy showed me the results so far, me and James are currently series leaders, but Johnny, Baz and Cossey are all in the running with Draycote, Brookvale and Redditch left to contend with - please don't let this come to a shoot-out at Redditch again!

There was a half decent breeze blowing when the 18 Ents and a load of GP14's and Wayfarers left the shore for the 1st race - lets hope the race officer manages to keep the fleets apart... me and James made our way out to the start with James yawning after a damned early star and me whining about the fact that I thought I may have broken a couple of ribs after a certain "incident" last week at Northampton..(best go to the docs tomorrow!)

Race 1
Race 1 got underway with a half-decent breeze, we had decided to go agressive on the start and with the pin-end favoured we put ourselves to windward and up the line of Cossey around 30 secs to go, we (in aggressive mode) decided to make the run to the pin end with out Cossey, but he started to luff us upto (and over) the line, it looked like we would be too early so after a bit of friendly banter Mike slowed up a tad, we worked the boat over his, did a Kamikazee duck below the line and went for it hitting the pin-end (but not the mark) dead on the gun..cracking start for us...

We powered off towards the left of the beat, and once the majority of the fleet had gone over to port, on the enxt half decent shift we went over onto port, covering the fleet and on a lift towards the mark... fantastic... the rest of the race was fairly static for us with Barry and Julie ending up leading the chase in second with Martin Davies and Mike Cossey after some close racing in the chasing pack... sop we won.. the boat does go forwards quickly and, we can make correct tactical choices - maybe we're not muppets!

Race 2
Again, this race was, pretty much a precession once the 1st beat was done, Barry managed to leg it up the beat first with us trailing and Mike and Cossey chasing again, some "incidents" with other fleets did make us wonder whether we'd be back next yer, but thankfully we stayed in second, but never did catch Baz & Julie...

Race 3
So, Race 3 and the points for the to 1/2 of the fleet were bloody close and it was anyones game for 3rd and 4th and for us and Barry/Julie whoever crossed the line ahead was going home with the pot (shiny metal thing!).

So after a fairly standard start with us powering out of the line with Barry ahead and to leward we thought we may well have got him pinned, unfortunately a slight header and some excellent boatspeed from Baz meant he was just able to tack and clear us by about a metre - we held on starboard for a little while loonger hopign to get a sklightly better lift up the lake but to no avail, and with Baz out infront we got stranded in the chasing pack and spent the next 3/4 of the race working past Cossey and Woodward. In the latter half of the race after a couple of useful lulls Mr.Woodward and ourselved did look like we might catch Baz, but, although we got past Johnny and up into 2nd, the gap was too great....another lap and we'd have had him though!!

So Baz won, deservedly..Grrr... and we were happy after some good racinf in 2nd...

Overall
1st 2pts Baz & Julie
2nd 3pts Ant & James
3rd 7pts Johhny & Janice

So, thats that for another week.... next weekend its the last Typhoon Grand Prix at Draycote..