It’s close at the top…

Day 5 of the Warsash Spring Series dawned bright and sunny with a lovely light breeze rippling the trees in Hamble’s waterside gardens. A gentle sail to the start allowed Imptish, the only Impala competing this week, to practice several spinnaker gybes amongst the newly formed multinational crew (if 2 Estonians and 4 brits some of whom can speak French counts as multinational!). Halfway up the first leg it all looked good for team Impala as Imptish had snuck out to a comfortable lead. Unfortunately it all went downhill after that. A nasty kite rip on the first drop and a rapidly increasing breeze leading to withdrawal of the new no 1 from the field of play meant that by for most of the downwind legs Imptish had a poled out no 2 and the crew were drinking tea and eating cake! The end result wasn’t great on handicap (6^th out of the 7 finishers) but it’s all to play for next weekend when the series concludes with Imptish, Sigma 33 ‘Prospero of Hamble, and Mustang 30 ‘Erik the Red’ essentially tied on points after the discard. Whoever finishes first in race 6 will win the series!