Thames Sailing Club
Two Bridges Race (TBR)
What a difference a year makes; approximately 365 days ago Chris Martin and I (both new members at 
that point in time) elected to "give it a go" in the TBR using one of the Club Wayfarers. however, for 2008 Chris was sailing in his Rater Wings and myself on the jib in Lady Jane who's syndicate I had joined just after Bourne End last year. We were also joined on the water by Martin Hunter in Spindrift and Alastair MacDonald who had shocked the club by buying Lady Iona lock, stock and two smoking barrels from the previous owners, in addition to this despite Alastair's very credible CV of sailing experience he's not done much river sailing and to his credit participated in the TBR - Alastair you are most welcome to TSC.
Anyway onto the racing. Of the four Raters competing, half of the fleet elected to head to Kingston first, I'll let you in on a secret - we intended to do Kingston first, but by being over the line on the start we had to the upstream leg first (shhh - don't tell anyone I told you). The previous week there had been quite a lot of rain consequently the river was running rather quick; therefore Lady Jane was showing lots of love and attention to the Middlesex bank on our way to Hampton. We would also like to lay claim to a newly discovered piece of land just opposite Ditton's Marina that had magically appeared since last year - we actually ground to a halt upon it and with the cat like reflexes of Kevin who was out and pushing us off again meant we didn't loose too much ground. Rounded the mark just before Hampton Bridge only to be confronted with a HUGGEE Thames Barge that, lucky for us, had decided to turn around before us. I think Kevin's words sum up the moment perfectly "This'll be interesting". We passed Wings on our way back to Thames along with the small boat fleet; to find that Ben and Nicole had achieved a significant lead over Susie and Ian - which made me ponder whether Ben's secret squirrel training courses had been paying dividends.
I'll hand over to Ben now as he's going to give us a taster of the small boat experience.
The majority of the small boat pack elected to start upstream with only Steve and Cathy from Minima and Brian Hepburn heading for the Kingston turn first Ben and Nicole and Ian and Susie managed to pull clear of the upstream pack and, whilst the going was upwind, Ben and Nicole were able to maintain a 50yd gap to the Merlin. At the Albany a clear tail wind gave Ian and Susie a chance to fly their kite and close the gap to the Albacore. Rounding the Hampton mark the Albacore was just ahead and managed to generate space on the Merlin upwind passing Andre and Crista in the second Albacore who were engaged in their own battle with Alex from Minima in his Solo.
The leaders passed Brian going the other way at the waterworks, by now ploughing a lonely furrow as Steve had retired upon reaching the TSC. Though Brian still had the greater distance to go, it was soon evident that the Kingston leg was the slower, placing Brian clearly in the lead irrespective of Handicap. The battle for 2nd place was decided in part by the tactical error on the part of Ben and Nicole of passing Raven’s Ait to port whereupon they lost the wind enabling the Merlin to power past on the Middlesex channel. Ian and Susie then made much better use of the broad reach down to Kingston consolidating a lead that was closed on the final return leg but couldn’t be recovered by the Albacore.
Page last updated: 10/06/2008 12:40:19
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