‘Medway Yacht Club Autumn Series Sunday’s race 4 was always going to be exciting for the 13 entries a strong South Westerly breeze with gusts touching 30 knots. Start for both classes was at buoy 22 up river to 27, down river to Z2 for class 1 and 12 for classes 2 & 3, finish at 29. Class 1 start saw a mixture of two strategies ; some lined up on starboard at the committee boat end and some mingling at the pin to start on port. On this occasion the “port flyers” got away with it, benefiting from a slight line bias clearing the starboard boats As usual Mercury reached the windward mark first and turned down wind, gybing after a short leg and then hoisting her spinnaker. The downwind legs were fast. Mercury saw 15 knots of boat speed in a gust downwind at one point before broaching, quite spectacularly, and filling the cockpit with the river Medway. The Works was hot in pursuit on her tail managing 18 knots on the plane, although she too managed an entertaining Chinese gybe and broach dunking some of the crew waist deep in water. Big Zipper followed suit with a similarly spectacular manoeuvre. Zephyros, not wanting to steal the show kept her kite on deck allowing the lead boats to pull away.
Finishing corrected time in IRC gave The Works a win over Big Zipper of 4 seconds with Mercury finishing 4th some 8 minutes later. The first two places were the same on YTC but with difference of 5 mins.
Class 2 of two entries was taken for a third win by Brigand who appeared to cruise the race and were clearly enjoying the sailing.
Class 3 of three entries was lead by Irene who leads the series by 3 points.’
