Dell Quay Sailing Club

(Published in the Chichester Observer on Thursday 2nd April 2015)

The Dell Quay Sailing Club 2015 season kicked off with the first 2 races of the Early Trophy series with separate starts for each class.

Close competitive racing was the order of the day for the 2000 fleet. In the first race, Anne & Jim Norfolk rounded the windward mark in third place but took a different course downwind and rounded the leeward mark first, ahead of Graham & Fiona Dalton and Mike Fitzgerald & Tim Dormer. Thereafter these boats were in close contention, particularly rounding marks, but when the course was shortened the Norfolks took the lead to finish first with Fitzgerald/Dormer second and the Daltons third.

In the second race Fitzgerald/Dormer took first place this time with the Norfolks second and the Daltons coming in third again.

With a good turnout, the Solo races were dominated by Roger Puttock and Malcolm Buchanan who took first and second place respectively in both races. A fierce battle was fought between John Purdy and Fred Hilgers for third place honours in both races, with Purdy taking third in race one and Hilgers claiming this prize in race two.

For the Handicap races the form was consistent throughout both races, resulting in no change in positions from race 1 to race 2. Both races saw close competition between the Finn, Laser and RS 400 with the course favouring the single sail boats taking the more direct route on the downwind leg. In both races Phoebe Noble took first place in her Laser Radial, followed by Andrew Buchanan (Finn), Rob Corfield and Jamie Prescott (RS 400) and Roy Dyton (Streaker) coming in 4th.

This same weekend DQSC Juniors Louise Dicker and Maddie Thorne took part in the RS Feva National invitation only race training event at HISC.  Weather conditions proved too challenging for the girls on the Saturday but they competed in 3 races on the Sunday, perfecting their spinnaker drills to advance up the fleet.

They achieved a credible 62^nd place out of 74 competitors and are now likely to be invited to the regional race circuit as a result.

Report by Andrew Horne

Contributors: Anne Norfolk (2000), Rob Corfield (Handicap) and Mike Dicker (Juniors)