As the third day of Jura Scottish Series brought in sunshine and warmer temperatures, the six handicap classes enjoyed their longest race of the regatta, a coastal course down to the south of Loch Fyne, contesting their traditional Round Inch race, whilst the three one design classes had a busy diet of four windward-leeward races.
It was entirely appropriate that on a Sunday on which many crews wore yellow in support of the West of Scotland’s Beatson Cancer Charity, that the day should finish with a decent, warmer breeze and Tarbert and the Kintyre hills bathed in beautiful sunlight, picking out the lush greens and purples of a truly spectacular backdrop which remains one of the most picturesque of any European regatta.
Sleipnir takes top trophy
It was Rory Chalmers and the young crew on the Mustang 30 Sleipnir which lifted the Round Inch Trophy for the best performance in the handicap fleet. Leaders of CYCA 2 class the Chalmers longstanding rivalry with Finn Aitken’s Impala team on Arcade, last year’s winners has lifted their level and motivation.
Chalmers and crew added their third win in a row on the long course which was punctuated by a long calm and shifting breeze which they read right.
“I think we really kept our eyes out of the boat and looking ahead we could see faster boats which had sailed into a big hole and we thought we saw boats on the left which were more powered up and so we headed that way and it worked. We were not expecting to win this trophy. The crew did a great job today getting the boat round the race course.” Said helm Chalmers.
J/24 reigns
In IRC Class 1 today belonged to Martin Mahon’s Snoopy’s J, the J/24 from Courtdown SC in Ireland whilst the current Scottish Series Trophy holders, Brian Hall’s Something Else lead the division by only two points. IRC Coastal is led by the Thomsons’ Swan 40 Sloop John T. CYCA 1 sees john Conlon’s Humdinger also leading by two points.
Bounce Back bounce back
After being forced to play second fiddle to the women on Living on the Etch on Saturday when Kirsty Coupland and Katy Wedderburn raced to three wins in a row, Allan Manuel and crew lived up to their boat name, Bounce Back, and rallied to four consecutive race wins in the Etchells class. The two- times class winners extend their leading margin to a comfortable 13 points with one day of competition left.
“It was a spectacular day, just champagne sailing. We managed to get off the start line each time, it was quite shifty and so you really needed to keep looking up the race track to see what was coming, picking the puffs and the shifts. We are not sure how much there will be tomorrow s we really made sure we did our work today.” Said Manuel, helm on Bounce Back.
In the Sigma 33 One Designs, James Millar’s Mayrise remains the dominant team, now heading for another class win after three wins from their four starts today.
“We had a bad first race when we got a fifth but three bullets after that was good. We seem to have a high mode that the others don’t have and that helps. The boat really is in the groove this year. It would be great now to see some younger owners coming into the class, the Sigma 33 is great value now we get good racing and you can family cruise too.” Millar enthused in the Tarbert sunshine.
Sharing’s caring
The Hunter 707s saw the race wins shared today. Ruth Neville’s class leading PO took the first guns for the middle two races of their day but Rory Ferrier and his young team on Pocket Battleship outgunned Dara O’Malley’s SeaWORD on the final run of the first race of the day to win, whilst Peter Robinson’s Braveheart won Race 10. PO leads SeaWORD going into the last day by four points.
