Barts Bash

A sunny force 4-5 NNE with a rolling sea greeted 25 boats at Shanklin for Bart's Bash on Sunday the 21st September. As well as Shanklin Sailing Club members there were also four boats from neighbouring Yaverland Sailing and Boat Club.

A two mile course was set with a long windward leg and a wide start line to accommodate all the boats. In reality the fleet was already spread out at the start and only seven boats got away on time, all of them Sprint 15 catamarans. Sean McKenna was in the pack at the start and was first to tack out into the open sea while Erling Holmberg, Mark Pritchard, John Shenton, Simon Giles, Ian Bolton and Liam Thom all headed towards the beach to get out of the tide. At the windward mark, Sean McKenna had a 50 yard lead from Liam Thom (who hit the buoy), with a similar gap back to Simon Giles. Positions were maintained until the next lap when the slightly easing wind made the windward mark a bit of a tidal gate and the gaps between the boats increased dramatically for the first three boats. Meanwhile John Shenton had made up several places by getting a lift along the shore to reach fifth place behind Mark Pritchard.

At the line, McKenna won the race convincingly with a five minute gap back to Thom, Giles coming in third 2 and a half minutes later. Henry Giles was the best of the dinghies in a Pico and did extremely well to get round a testing course in conditions which did not favour the slower boats.

Pictures by Mary Howie-Wood and Mark Harding.