Torpoint Mosquito Sailing Club Regatta
by Nick Fisher 12 Aug 12:25 PDT
10-11 August 2024
Torpoint Mosquito Regatta - Lawrie Mather © Nick Fisher
As I arrived at the club the fog was rolling over the hills to the south of us, presenting a cool dank atmosphere. The forecast was for 12 - 15 kts E'ly but there was no sign of that just yet. I was a bit too early for bacon butties and the tea urn was still heating up. Hey ho.
With the first race scheduled for 11:00 the breeze started to kick in across the estuary, the sun poked its head out from behind the clouds and the fog lifted to present us with a glorious summer's day, the first this year, not quite, but we don't seem to have had to many.
Two starts, with the racing split into fast and medium, a wind blowing directly along the fixed start line, it was going to be a reaching start with an ebb tide as well, it could be interesting.
1055 and the countdown begins with our own Rachel Riley in the form of Dee Brown as race officer. A small fleet of phantoms with a flying dutchman were away first time, the medium fleet, made up mostly of Solos and lasers, were taking up their positions, we didn't have quite the same expectations of a clean start, but, to our surprise they were away first time. With the racing away off in the distance it's only when the boats are coming round to complete a lap we can really see the state of play. To nobody's surprise it was the FD well in the lead, revelling in the now frisky conditions, followed by Nik Lye in his Phantom. The medium fleet were being led round by Neil Traethan in a standard Laser, followed by a gaggle of Solos and Lasers.
So, off they set again to St John's lake, from there they turn East to head on a beat to the Cremyl buoy, the wind being squeezed by the headlands produces some interesting gusts and shifts, the tide is at its strongest and contains a few eddies, capsizes were starting to come and reports of 25kt gusts were later bandied about the bar, didn't feel it in the race hut! With the hour approaching the course was shortened, with the FD taking line honours but Nik Lye grabbing the win.
The medium fleet led led in by Neil but he lost out on handicap to the laser radial and a few Solos.
A slight change in the course for the second race of the day to avoid the increasing wind and tide of Cremyl.
Clean starts again from both fleets, although depleted a little with retirements, let's face it some of these Solo sailors must be approaching their century, the youth section is up to 60 years old. The order of things was much the same in both fleets first time round, it was the 2nd lap where things got a bit more exciting, big gusts creating hairy gybes, having just completed an excellent gybe the FD shot off to get another 50 yds before the mast snapped in half like a fresh green bean. Jo Hearn in his Phantom continued to pile up the hours in his swimming log before retiring, Jake Goldsworthy deserves a mention for perseverance, despite many capsizes he kept going to complete the race. Neil took line honours again but as before lost out to Lawrie in his radial and Roger in the Solo.
At the end of the day the results were split into three fleets, fast, medium and Solo, and the winners were:
Fast fleet: Nik Lye, Phantom
Medium fleet: Lawrie Mather, Radial
Solo fleet: Roger Gibb
Nik Lye was a convincing winner having taken 5 bullets.
Full results can be found here.