Five Musto Skiffs turned up to an unusually warm and sunny Rutland for the sixth leg of the Seldén Sailjuice Winter Series.
Race 1 kicked off with a calm 6-8 knots and by the top mark, Rob Richardson led Dan Vincent before Sam Pascoe picked the hoist point right and rolled the pair to take the lead. At the first leeward mark 4 of the 5 mustos were covered by no more than 5 boat lengths! Pascoe went on to take the win from Rob then Dan.
Race 2 the wind had increased slightly to a puffy 10 knots. Sam Barker won the pin end and came in from the left to lead at the top mark with Dan and Sam in hot pursuit. Barker led for the first lap before Pascoe snuck through up the beat to run away with another win. Meanwhile Rob and Dan got past Barker when he decided to capsize to windward with the kite up!
Race 3. Pascoe won the pin and did a horizon job so enough talking about that. Rob pushed too hard and got called over the line so left Barker, Dan and Brennan (who had now warmed up) to duke it out for 2nd, 3rd and 4th Musto. Barker managed to fend off Dan who then fell in and let the fast chasing Brennan through for 3rd.
We got off the water to find out that the Musto class was 1-4 on the overall results of the Tiger Trophy! Only a few murmurs about our handicap… but it’s okay. The pursuit race put that to bed!
Day 2 and another windy pursuit race. Thankfully less death angle reaching!
With Beannan having to be on rescue duty due to train strikes, four Mustos took to the start. Rob rounded first with Dan chasing hard. The Sams both had good hoists and all four Musto were separated by meters hooning downwind. Rob came a cropper capsizing after the drop which let Dan and Barker through. On the next hoist Robs kite halyard snapped so was forced to retire. Pascoe pushed hard and got past dan and Barker on the next run by picking the gybe point correctly. Barker fell over trying to drop in a 30 knot gust leaving Dan and Sam to run away but being joined at the hip the whole way!
In the closing stages, Dan got Past Sam when he had a little lie down but waited politely when he also found the righting lever further down the run. The excitement didn’t stop there with Pascoe spinning out on the last run which we later found out was due to a rudder failure! The pair sent it up the last beat to finish 4th and 6th respectively meaning that Pascoe had won the event overall! Dan Finished 3rd and Barker finished 6th.
Big thank you to Rutland Sailing Club for hosting. The next event is the final round of the Seldén Sailjuice Winter Series, the Oxford Blue.
