Savill's RWYC Kip Regatta - yet more photos added

The Results Are Here

A regatta of two days. Saturday was really pretty rubbish and a nightmare for the race committee. In the first race Class 1 got away whereupon the northerly breeze died completely leading to race abandonment. A pity for Tanit who pulled off a nerves-of-steel perfect start on port at the pin end. A second attempt at a race in the opposite direction with the new wind did only a little better with the windward mark becoming the leeward mark during round one. There was a lot of reaching and drifting and although two races were indeed completed I think there would be general agreement that it was not a very good day to go yacht racing even if the rain never came to anything and there was plenty of sunshine.

Sunday was a great deal better with around 10kt wind from a NNW-ish direction and bright sunshine. A perfect day to go sailing in fact and there was no real difficulty for the RWYC committee in running 2 back to back windward-leewards with no intervening delay. The courses were all on the Inellan side with an early hitch in to the shore being favoured by most. Unfortunately, entries were such that IRC class splits were rejigged with the loss of IRC 3. This meant a wide rating band in Class 2 which wasn't ideal for the smaller boats. The two Archambault A35s, Acrewed Interest and Another Djinn were particularly striking and it would seem that these are definitely le bateau du moment for IRC purposes. Nick and Miles Stratton had to retire at the start of Race 1 with a crew injury and it was left to Acrewed Interest to be awarded the overall trophy. The worthies of the RWYC consistently run an excellent regatta on the water and equally consistently make inaudible speeches and mumble their way through the prizegivings but who is worried when the exceptionally comely 'Mrs Savill' is on hand to deliver the silverware? She is seen below with the winning Acrewed crew of which Steve Goacher on the right will be a key ingredient. Geoff Howison missed his prize acceptance opportunity for IRC 1 as apparently he was preoccupied with fixing the hydraulic system on Local Hero, having survived racing with an emergency backstay.

photo courtesy of Savills

Commodore's Cup little boat entry 'Exaltation' the X35 from Ulster although leading the board on Saturday didn't beat the A35s and scored an overall 5th behind Salamander XX and the venerable Swan 'Sloop John T'. On Troika we did some rig tweaking after Saturday's fairly depressing efforts and managed to get enough pace to haul ourselves off the bottom of the heap. On Sunday there was some enjoyable close racing amongst the usual suspects at the back end of IRC 2.

Photo by Neill Ross

In IRC 1 it was not a weekend for the likes of Playing FTSE but Local Hero, now sporting a prod, looked immaculate. Kevin Aitken's 'Duckwall Pooley' managed to pull a 2nd in class by virtue of some good scores on flukey Saturday. Regrettably the Mills 40 'Argy Bargy' was not able to make an appearance and the word is that even BLSS is looking questionable.

We understand that Andrew Perratt of Savills Glasgow office was on board Grand Cru. Maybe they were putting on a special demo of kite trawling for him. Hard to figure out what the sail setting scheme was in that pic.

photo courtesy of Savills

photo courtesy of Savills

IRC4 was won by John Kent and his little boat that most of his competitors could see Farr E Nuff. Regular visitor John Allen and his Antix roadshow from Whitby took 3rd. In this regatta IRC 4 and CYCA 4 are mixed to give separate series of results. The old Sigma 33s were well to the fore with Ziggy Stardust taking the class followed by AeRo and the SJ30 Misjif. The is hardly a Sigma 33 class any more (remember when?) but there is still an impressive half model trophy to be handed out and Ziggy took that too.

photo courtesy of Savills

photo courtesy of Neill Ross

Sportboat was a bit of a mixed bag. We were pleased to see Colin McDonald and his Water Tigers take 2nd even though handicap racing is not what they're about. Were also pleased to see Gerry Firth & co (late of Miss Tuttles) up with their Beneteau 25 sportboat getting 3rd. We should mention that that Sonatas were there too - 4 of them with Pied Pier, Saraband and So all ending up with equal points.

Off the water, we missed the laser pigeon shooting and whatnot and also managed to avoid the barbecue but the Raggle Taggle Gypsies (O) were a top notch band who really set the chartroom going later in the evening. So all in all, despite the relative disappointments of Saturday it was a fine event as ever and I think all who took part are very appreciative of all that the Royal Western YC do to make this a weekend not to be missed. Bavaria Yachts as a co-sponsor should perhaps get a mention too - what with the Bavaria parked in front of the Chartroom beer lawn - as though washed up there by a tidal wave or else just squeezed up there by the pressure of all the other Bavarias crammed into Kip.

Everywhere we looked there appeared to be people pointing lenses at us so eventually there should be lots of photos around somewere. If anybody finds out where let me know and I'll put up the link. Marc Turner is at pfmpictures.co.uk but I don't see any Kip pics there yet. Thanks to Savills for the use of the ones credited above.

Neill Ross has taken some excellent photos of the event and has kindly offered some for display here. You can see his full collection here

photo Neill Ross

Photo Neill Ross

Photo Neill Ross

Photo Neill Ross

back