Emotions ranging from ecstasy to despair and back were felt at the SB3’s Henri-Lloyd-sponsored Eurocup at Lymington last weekend. The wind conditions ranged from 0 knots in race 4, to 30 knots in the final race, with boats hitting 20 knots down the last run being subjected to a 30 degree right-hand shift with little change in wind speed over about 400 metre.

Chris Blackburn stuck a rock star newbie, John Date, in the back of his work’s lasersailing.com boat and blitzed the fleet with a 2,2,1,4,1 scoreline to take first place overall with six points.

Glenn Bourke weighed in with a world record heaviest crew ever, maxi boat Alfa Romeo pro and Volvo veteran Cedric, along with Alinghi navigator and Volvo skipper Andrew Cape, and nearly broke the nice shiny new weighing scales. As a result he started day two with 72 points. Not even he could close that gap, and his two second places on Sunday were only enough to get 11th overall, but enough to win the Silver fleet (boats only scoring in two races).

Winner of the bronze fleet (boats only scoring in one race) and first woman helmsman was Mini Summerhayes, with a seventh in race four, managing to demolish two kites in the process.

Jerry Hill took second overall (boats scoring four or more races) with Mark Richards in the middle. After some poor starts, appalling upwind form but blistering downwind speed, they was able to string together a set of top results.

Colin Simonds with brother Gavin pulling some strings came third. Interestingly these chaps had a probable average crew age over 65 and really showed how much fun you can have in an SB3 at 20knots regardless of your years. Gavin was quoted later as saying he didn’t want to take the kite down at 18 knots, not due to fear, just that he wanted to sail all the way to Seaview such was the hoot he was having!

Chairman Dave Evans surprised only himself with a storming fourth, with local boy Charles Nicholson fifth, and Dominic May sixth.