Kit Guide

Hill Head RS Feva Open With My Little Brother

What do you do when your usual crew can 't sail with you? Summon your siblings and select. I agreed to have my brother crew for me in our RS Feva in a very gusty northerly day at Hill Head. My brother having never crewed a Feva before didn't really have a clue what to do. Why? because he's only sailed single handed, but being young meant he learnt quickly meaning that we got off to a flying start amongst 25 boats, the first start was recalled because 6 boats were too keen. Next start was also a flying one, first off at the pin, luckily no recalls, I instructed Oli to call out the time, counting down to our start which he took on with great pleasure and enthusiasm. Coming into the top mark the two boats ahead of us started to go the other way. Oli having not read the sailing instructions said follow them while I disagreed saying we should just gybe and sail to the bottom mark. We then decided we shouldn't risk it and became sheep. In the end we crossed the line in 4th having lost it on the last reach as we were 35kg off optimum weight so had difficulty keeping the boat flat, all the sheep were given a DNF except Simon Shillaker and his daughter Katie who braved it and sailed the right course. The next race went extremely well as we reached the top mark in second, Oli hoisted the kite in about 2 minutes as he didn't quite have the hand over hand technique, I encouraged him to pull harder, but he struggled, when he finally hoisted it he sighed with relief. While the other two boats were sailing off on the wrong course again, Oli and I gybed off and set of for the gate with the tide ebbing at full wack in a Westerly direction. Which meant we almost reached to the mark while others soaked. They fell down tide of the mark and all decided to drop their kites to get to the mark but failed as they just didn't have the power from the two sails to make the gate and so they just drifted backwards. We kept our kite as long as possible. Oli then told me he couldn't drop the kite so while I was steering towards the mark and dropping the kite myself, having to stretch forwards, backwards and all directions, he was just sitting there laughing at me. We rounded and didn't even tack to make the top mark. There was a massive cry of joy from Oli as we crossed the finish line with the bullet echoing around the Solent minutes ahead of 2nd place. We finished 2nd overall with the winners being very consistent with two 2nds. So if you're missing your crew get your brother or sister to give you a hand. Oh, and make sure if it is a spinnaker boat that they can get it down! All in all great fun! Billy

Rank		SailNo	Club	HelmName	CrewName	R1	R2	R3	Total	Nett
1st		3999	Trent/Bowmoor	Josh Haynes	Dominic Cotterill	(25.0 DNF)	2.0	2.0	29.0	4.0
2nd		1276	HHSC	Billy Vennis-Ozanne	Ollie Vennis-Ozanne	(25.0 DNF)	1.0	5.0	31.0	6.0
3rd		557	HHSC	Simon Shillaker	Katie Shillaker	1.0	5.0	(20.0)	26.0	6.0
4th		4623	Warsash SC	Edward Norbury	Charlie Hutchings	(25.0 DNF)	7.0	1.0	33.0	8.0
5th		5560	Tonbridge School	Dan Discombe	Dom Lewis	(25.0 DNF)	4.0	6.0	35.0	10.0
6th		5512	Lymington Town SC	Liam Willis	Arran Mills	(25.0 DNF)	3.0	8.0	36.0	11.0
7th		4883	Warsash SC	Jessie Main	Alice Powell	(25.0 DNF)	9.0	3.0	37.0	12.0
8th		1	Keyhaven YC	Evie Snedker	David Ellis	(25.0 DNF)	8.0	4.0	37.0	12.0
9th		2402	Calshot SC	Lewis Brown	Gregory Brown	(25.0 DNF)	6.0	10.0	41.0	16.0
10th		759	HHSC	Miles Jones	Tom Nottingham	(25.0 DNF)	11.0	7.0	43.0	18.0