Pursuit Series Race 1 - 8th April 2023

A glorious Saturday afternoon saw the first in the pursuit series at Dell Quay SC with 6 boats signing on comprising of 6 different classes.

With a nice 6-10 knts south/south easterly breeze, race officer Stephen Holcroft set a simple course beating to Crouchers then Kiln followed by a reach to Copperas West, and a downwind leg to Hook.

Holly Wilburn's Laser Radial went away first followed by the Solo of Graham Dalton, Dalton getting off to a fine start and quickly overtaking the Radial. Next off was Mike Dicker (Vareo), followed by Duncan Llewelyn (Supernova), Jack de la Hunty (Aero 7) and last Jon & Megs Wilburn in the RS 400.

The Supernova of Llewelyn was going very well in the early stages quickly catching others before unfortunately missing and having to turn back to the Crouchers mark. In the mid stages of the race, it was Dicker (Vareo) and de la Hunty (Aero 7) that had overhauled the others and were having a fantastic battle for first, frequently changing places. Late in the race Dicker with spinnaker up took full advantage of an increase in wind and a downwind leg to fly past de la Hunty and looked to be firm favourite.

In the final stages the Wilburn's (RS 400) came from what looked like nowhere to join the end battle, de la Hunty kept his cool and sailed past Dicker upwind to take a well-deserved first, Dicker skilfully held off the RS400 to take second with the RS 400 finishing third. With just a few boat lengths between the first three it was an exciting finish to great first race in the series.