Eighteen trimarans entered the MOCRA Multihull national championship organised by the Royal Southampton Yacht Club on 22-24 June.

Trimarans from the drawing board of Ian Farrier comprised the majority of the fleet: four Farrier F27s, two F28Rs, a 31, two F24s and two F25Cs. Michel Fortin brought his self-designed 33ft Tancrede with a Farrier-style folding system over from Ouistreham. The balance of the fleet were all Quorning designs, five Dragonfly 800s and a Dragonfly Mk1 derivative, Firefly.

Glorious sunny conditions prevailed throughout the event. The RSYC Race Management team led by Peter Bateson and Geoff Lynch set a variety of courses for the eight races including windward/leeward and around Solent marks.

Race one was held in light airs in the central Solent, the French boat Tancrede (with multihull journalist Jeremy Evans aboard) took line honours in race one and second on corrected time. Two more races were held on Friday with F27 Martine (Pete Newman) leading with 1,2,5 from Dragonfly Kokomo.

Saturday provided winds up to 25 knots which opposed to a spring tide produced testing conditions. Dragonfly Kokomo sailed by James Stewart, Lucy Kennedy and Keith Taylor dominated the three races of the day not only taking corrected time honours by margins of up to seven minutes but first to finish in two races.

Martine looked in contention taking second in race four but a trawled spinnaker and damaged bowsprit saw the two discards used. The two Corsair F28Rs also enjoyed the boisterous conditions with Carbon Tiger (Brian Haynes) taking two seconds and a fifth and Shakatak (Pete Jenkins) two thirds and a fifth. Team GBR Paralympic 2.4 Metre sailor Mike Browne was racing his Farrier F24 Legless, but was forced to miss Sunday’s racing following a collision with Tancrede.

Going into the final day, Kokomo lead overall from Carbon Tiger and Shakatak. Light winds and flat sea in race seven and a good sea breeze in race eight saw the same result, with Martine, Kokomo and Carbon Tiger taking the top three places.

Overall Kokomo after the first two races was never worse than second which with discards gave eight points with Martine second on 12 points. Kokomo became MOCRA national champion for the third year running.

Overall Results

1st Kokomo (Dragonfly 800) – James Stewart, Lucy Kennedy, Keith Taylor

2nd Martine (Farrier F27) – Pete Newman, Chris Henderson, Jim Seed

3rd Carbon Tiger (Farrier F28R) – Brian Haynes, Keith Bliss, Rob Gutteridge

4th Shakatak ( Farrier F28R) – Peter Jenkins, Pat Jenkins, Richard Hazelgrove

5th Kaos (Farrier F27) – Ian Loffhagen, Spencer Harrison, Simon Burt

6th Scooby III (Dragonfly 800) – Simon Forbes, Sadie Peeters, John Caig