There was a distinct turnabout in conditions for the second spring series race on the Solent. A chilly weekend brought a mixture of sunshine and heavy rain or hail showers and a strong breeze. The race officers set tight challenging courses keeping all the crews busy. On the White Group sportsboat division for the J/70s, the wind built from 14 to 20 knots in the half hour before Race 1. Competitors stayed well back from the line, helped by the first of the flood tide. All the same, they were too close for comfort from the committee boat which weighted the anchor chain down and laid an inner distance mark. At times during the squalls, visibility dropped considerably so that the committee boat lost sight of the windward mark at one point. At the latter part of the morning, the wind dropped equally suddenly from 26 to 9 knots, making it all quite challenging. At the J/70 start, Boats.com (Ian Atkins) impeded Joseph’s Coat (Marie-Claude Heys) and so took a two-turn penalty but nonetheless went on to win this and the remaining two races. Django (Malcolm and Tristan Jaques) took second in Race 1 and then Joseph’s Coat took seconds in Races 2 and 3. The top three boats are quite close in the series standings, separated by only two points. Simon Cavey’s Just4Play still leads with a 1-1-1-5-3-3 scoreline for 14 points. Tied for second at 16 points each are Django with a 2-2-2-2-4-4 tally and Joseph’s Coat with 3-3-3-3-2-2 in six races. For more information, visit http://www.warsashspringseries.org.uk/.

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