On the 29th August 2009 10 visitors joined an excellent turnout of 20 home boats for the annual Laser Open meeting at Hunts SC. They were greeted with sunshine, warm temperatures and, unusually for late August, a decent amount of wind. The PRO John Coppenhall set a varied course including 2 good beats and a variety of downwind legs. Minor tweaks were required during the day due to the wind moving around. Race 1 was led from start to finish by....
David Jessop of Cambs Uni taking advantage of a good fight for second to get away from the front of the pack. He did have a scare on the penultimate lap when he sat in no wind on one of the deep reaches to see the chasing pack full on planning in a gust and taking a huge chunk out of his lead. Second place was a hard fought affair and was held for most of the race by local sailor Paul Jefferies closely followed by David Cronk also from the home club, Graham Lund, Jarvis Simpson and Alan Bishop. On the final lap Paul gybed to find himself in no wind whilst those behind picked up a puff and merrily sailed past. The order at the finish was David Jessop from David Cronk, Graham Lund with Paul recovering to finish in 4th.
Race 2 followed a similar pattern with the exception of David Jessop who got the start all wrong and ended up being buried in the pack. Again Paul held second for a while in the race before making a mistake and testing the water temperature and allowing the chasing pack through. The order at the finish was Alan Bishop, David Cronk, David Jessop recovering well to take 3rd and Graham Lund in 4th.
Race 3 and all was to play for. The line was heavily port biased which caused a pile up at the pin resulting in a number of boats being caught OCS. The usual suspects emerged at the front in the early stages but Paul elected to test that water (again) and allowed the leading pack to escape. David Jessop sailed an excellent leg to pull through to the front (too excellent as it turns out, he missed a mark and retired after finishing). All eyes were now on David Cronk, could he get the win he needed to take the meeting? After a brief swim he dropped back to finish 5th leaving the meeting for David Jessop. The final race was won by Jarvis Simposn, Followed home by Graham Lund, then the local sailors of Mark Parker and Stuart Akers.
All in all an excellent day of racing was had by all with no one running away with the meeting. The Laser fleet at Hunts is going from strength to strength and becoming very competitive with the club people now giving the travellers a good run for their money.
Overall results are as below. First Radial home was John Cant of Ely SC, First 4.7 was Jonny Leeding from the home club.