The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
In-form Andy Prior enjoyed a second clean sweep of wins in as many weeks at Welland Yacht Club over the weekend.
The bank holiday weekend took its toll on numbers for Sunday’s racing, with several people away.
Some eight members in six boats prepared to start the first race of the day, which was the fourth round of the Morning Points series.
The wind was between 18-20mph with stronger gusts for Will Cook with crew Emma Hill in an enterprise, Neal Tack and crew Rebecca Slator in a graduate, junior Emma Agar in a topper, while the three lasers of Andy Prior, Tom Bell and Mark Holland deciding to opt for their smaller radial rigs.
Once the first mark was rounded Prior, Bell and Cook started to pull away and, with the first lap complete, it was Prior from Bell with Cook maintaining third, while Tack held fourth with Holland and Agar behind.
On the run back to the finish Cook and crew Hill capsized and, in the process of righting the boat, the center board broke to finish their day. Things also went wrong for Holland and, after several capsizes, he was forced to retire.
At the front, Bell closed the gap to Prior several times but just couldn’t get past. That left Prior to take the win, with Bell second, Agar third and Tack and Slator fourth.
With two races left to go and best four results counting, it’s looking more like a two-horse race between Prior and Bell for the series title.
The afternoon races were rounds one and two of the Pursuit series. This is where the handicaps are applied at the start of the race and each boat given a start time accordingly – meaning whoever leads after the allotted time is the winner.
With just five boats left and the wind up, Agar started first followed by Tack and Slator, then Holland followed by Prior and Bell, who shared the same start time.
Agar was determined not to be caught by Tack, who was close on her heals.
Holland was caught out by the gusts and called it a day as Prior and Bell set off in pursuit of the other two.
By just over halfway they had caught and passed the two other boats, but Agar still kept forging ahead despite three capsizes and managed to keep Tack behind her.
In the end Prior took his second win of the day from Bell, with Agar keeping third from Tack and Slator.
By the time of the last race of the day the wind had strengthened further and Agar dropped out, leaving three boats to compete.
Tack and Slator got under way and, while Prior and Bell readied themselves for their start, Prior capsized.
He recovered in plenty of time, but then disaster struck for Bell when his toe strap broke – leaving him falling into the water.
That meant it was down to Tack to try and prevent Prior from getting all three wins for the second week in succession. With the gusts making both work hard for their position Tack and Slator suffered a capsize, leaving Prior to take another win and clean sweep.
