Fine weather continued at Welland Yacht Club for Sunday’s three races.
The first two races were the start of the Pursuit Series.
In these, handicaps are worked out prior to the race and boat starts are staggered so the slowest set off first with the quicker boats setting off later.
The race runs for 50 minutes and the winner is the boat in the lead at this point.
Seven boats started the first race with three Solos setting off first but despite the clear start line all three were well short and started late.
Next away was the Laser 2000 of Neal Tack and Rebecca Slator, followed by Andy Agar in the OK.
Three Lasers were last away, just over two minutes after the first boats, with Keiron Powell and Andy Prior both making good starts, this meant they were quickly catching up with the slower boats and started working their way through the fleet.
The two boats swapped places a number of times but by the time they were at the front it was Prior who was leading Powell.
Powell pulled back and took the lead on the downwind leg, only for Prior to retake him on the upwind leg. This time Prior managed to capitalise and pull out a good lead which he kept until the end of the race.
Chapman, in the third Laser, took third place from Agar, then came the Solos of Cook and Boyd, with Tack bringing up the rear.
The second race followed the same format but had gained the Solo of newcomer Geoff Tibbs.
After the poor starts of the first race, most boats managed to get much better starts.
This allowed Boyd to keep the lead for most of the first lap, while Prior and Powell were busy racing each other.
During the second lap Prior and Powell got past Boyd whilst matching each other tack for tack.
With the clock only minutes away from the 50-minute finish time, the boats were heading downwind towards the bottom mark with many side by side.
Prior was almost alongside Powell and tried to cut inside to gain the inside line at the mark, but this didn’t pay off and he had to go wide, allowing Powell to round the mark first, with a long 30 seconds to go.
However he was slightly slower in turning up for the beat, allowing Prior to overtake him and as the finishing gun went Prior was less than half a boat’s length ahead of Powell.
Slightly behind the lead two, Chapman in his Laser just pipped Agar.
An improving Boyd came in fifth, with Cook sixth and Tack seventh. Only a short distance behind was newcomer Tibbs.
The third race of the day was a round of the Afternoon Points which followed the standard format of everyone starting together.
Prior made the best start from the slightly depleted pack and led from start to finish building up a comfortable lead but behind him there was some very close racing.
Boyd saved her best race till last and fought a very close race finishing one second behind Agar but she moved up to second once handicaps were applied.
This also pushed Cook up to third, with Agar fourth with Tack and Slator taking fifth from Tibbs.
