It was a dull evening but without the threat of rain. With a constant force 4 wind from the SW the beat was 3-B in a box shaped course B-A-4-3. There were fourteen starters with two newcomers to the Series, Mike Cave in his Solo and Poppy Gannon in an Enterprise.
Following a good start, Joe Watkins in his 300 streaked around the course to complete the first lap in five minutes. The 200 of Alex and Olivia followed some lengths back and then there was another gap to the GPs of Val & Ken, Joan & Jack and AJ with Janie.
But it was not a good course for the Geeps with two tight reaches interspersed with a dead run. David’s Solo moved ahead of them and Ethan’s Radial and Pete’s Laser were also in the mix.
Joe was now lapping in six minutes and those on the Bates were asking how many laps he could complete before the light started to fade and the race was shortened. The wind was shifting ahead of beam on the final reach and all the kite boats were having difficulty getting them to fly and, particularly, dropping at 3. A tight rounding was needed to make the line but all were losing seconds while stowing and before they could harden up.
Val & Ken seemed to fare best of the bunch at 3 while Joan & Jack were not having one of their better Thursdays. But Alex & Olivia, a lap ahead, had the poorest rounding on the final lap eventually tacking off up the line. Surely that would ruin any chance of a win on FH? But no! FH results showed that they had beaten Joe by a mere second. David was third and Ethan fourth.
On PH it was Joe from David from Pete. Where were the Geeps? Don’t ask!