The B14 fleet headed up the A1(M) to Rutland Water for the Rutland Challenge for the John Merricks Tiger Trophy to be greeted by
sub zero weather, -5°C. Taking the forecast into account (starting to sound like a gramophone record), several teams decided that the risk of snow and possible stranding, meant that they would have to decline and not attend. However, for the 4 B14s that attended with the rest of the reduced fleet Dave Wilkins and his team provided some great racing over the weekend in hard conditions. The club liad on it's usual welcome, and the briefing included a video message dispatched by Ian Walker from the warmth of the South China Sea where he was still racing in the Volvo Ocean Race

The four boats, 789 Harken (Steve Hollingworth/Chris Murphy), 788 Seavolution (Mark Barnes/Dan Hare),
772 Ullman sails (Mark Watts/Al Storer) and 769 Marlow/All Good Fun (Dan Cowin/Dan Hollands) headed for the start line.

With the breeze ranging from 10 – 16 knots and mixed fleet it was going to be full on sailing the trapezoid course.

Race 1 and after a general recall, Seavolution gybed off the pin at 30 seconds and fired out just up from the pin on port to clear the fleet with Harken not so lucky having to duck a number of boats. As race 1 progressed, Seavolution battled with the 2 RS800s and leading 2 MPSs but lost out a bit on the last round. The other 3 hampered by traffic pulled through but their results reflected the traffic issues.

Race 2 and more of the same. This time with the pin congested again, the lead skiffs peeled to the right when possible with Seavolution and Ullman Sails in the chase. Dropping off the front created challenges, with the top and bottom legs of the trapezoid at particularly awkward angles- too tight to hold the spinnaker all the way, too deep/not quite windy enough to just blast it on two sails. Go high, and you’d get squeezed out, go low and the wall of sails created a blanket to the wind. A tight rounding of mark 3 was potentially useful, leading to a scary moment for Ullman Sails as they screamed (literally) in on starboard towards a large group of port-tack Merlins. With the breeze dropping on lap 3, this was to be one for the slow boats that only completed 2 laps when the gate closed.

Race 3, and with the wind back up, so the line spiced up. The cold weather had seen Harken head for the bar, and hands and feet were painful off the start Coming in from the port end Seavolution tacked under Merlin 3684 (Stu Bithell/Edd Clayson) to hold out for the pin. Over the next 30 seconds
these two both got the better of each other, with Seavolution eventually managing to establish the pin and squeeze the line, only for a large shift to the right on the gun. The fast skiffs, manage to find a route around the bunch hitting right. Seavolution came out on top followed by Marlow/All Good Fun. An intense race followed as the cold took its toll and some headed home, with Ullman Sails calling it a day after capsizing in an attempt to go round the back of an Osprey. However, the B14s that were left put on a show and hung on to the RS800s for most of the race, losing out on the last run where the first 4 boats got away in a stronger down wind breeze.

The fleet retired to thaw out and enjoy the hospitality of the White Horse inn at Morcott, hospitality that seemed to go on rather late into the night by the fire.

Sunday dawned with mist and little wind and ground covered in snow. Facing a long drive home, Harken decided to get an early start on it and packed up. With a delayed start, the B14s started with the MPSs, which always makes for an interesting start. Off the start, the best B14 was Marlow followed by Seavolution, separated by 2 MPSs, whilst a miscalculation saw Ullman having to complete a penalty before heading off in pursuit.

Through the next two legs Seavolution broke through, and over the next lap had a battle royal with Sten in the MPS. The swinging, light wind resulted in much of the course being tight spinnaker reaches- not ideal for the big windward-leeward spinnakers, especially when trying to get past the 29ers with their flatter spinnakers, and despite some creative drops and hoists Ullman never fully broke through, and ended up stuck in the middle of the 29ers with the second MPS, the RS800s and Ben McGrane and James Hughes in the I14, finishing 57^th.

Meanwhile Marlow/All Good Fun progressively broke through the various packs to get to 38^th. Coming to the end of the race, having seen the high performance boats becalmed for a while at the bottom of the lake, the first high performance boats were Seavolution in 17^th followed by Sten’s MPS in 23^rd, but Sten was the first high performance boat overall in 6^th and Seavolution 8^th. The pursuit race was taken by the Merlin helmed by Olympic 470 crew Stu Bithell.

So a great event and some testing conditions. The next leg in the series is the Draycote Dash followed by the Hoo Freezer. Let’s just hope that the conditions are finally kind to the fleet and we get all racing.

B14 results (for the series)