Even though Jerry Otter had an eight point lead going into the last day’s racing in the 45 ft class at the Hamble Big Boat Series last weekend, the other places on the rostrum were wide open.

The fleet stayed close together up the first beat but by the time they approached the leeward mark ‘Werewolf’ had a clear lead ahead of ‘Rebel’ (David Franks and Duncan Morris) and ‘Shockwave’ (Nick Lutte). ‘Fidessa Fastwave’ (Chris Brown and Peter Harding) was a couple of boats back but then had a better second lap to finish in 4th place. As well as several OCSs in the 45ft class, there were two OCS calls in the 40 ft class, one of them the series leader ‘Victric’, but both returned and started correctly. However, ‘Farrfarina’ (Rob Goddard) had made the most of his opportunity and led ‘Creative Play’ (Fenton Burgin) around the whole course. ‘Victric’ caught up to 3rd by the finish.

The 2nd race of the day was held after the main starting sequence for the Winter Series and provided the closest racing. After an hour’s racing ‘Fidessa Fastwave’ reached the line two secs ahead of ‘Werewolf’ with ‘Rebel’ another 20 seconds behind. So overall victory went to Jerry Otter in his Farr 45, Chris Brown’s DK46 was 2nd and another Farr 45 (David Franks) 3rd.

It would have been interesting to see if these positions would have changed if the leading Swan 45, Mischa Mouratov’s ‘Murka 2’ had been able to compete on the second weekend. In the smaller class ‘Victric’ returned to winning form for the last race but ‘Farrfarina’ held off ‘Creative Play’ to finish 2nd but couldn’t catch her in the overall table.

Results

45 ft Level Rated

1st Werewolf Farr 45 Jerry Otter 11 pts

2nd Fidessa Fastwave DK 46 Chris Brown & Peter Harding 21 pts

3rd Rebel Farr 45 David Franks & Duncan Morris 25 pts

4th Shockwave DK 46 Nick Lutte 29 pts

40 ft Level Rated

1st Victric 5 Farr 40 Tony de Mulder 11 pts

2nd Creative Play Farr 40 Fenton Burgin 12 pts

3rd Cadhire Farrfarina Farr 40 Rob Goddard 22 pts