Foiling Moth wins at Southampton Boat Show at double speed.

After last year's no wind and an abandoned race,  it was a great relief for all to be greeted by a good 12 kt breeze and sunshine as the fleet launched from SWAC for the 2014 Battle of Classes Pursuit Race,  part of the PSP Southampton Boat show.

The sole Mirror of Nigel Thomas led the fleet off at 13:00 followed by the SWAC RS Feva of Sienna ADDERLEY and Luke DOBLE,  eleven minutes later.  Starts became a bit busier around the 20 minute mark with a quick succession of 2000s,  Albacores,  12s and Scorpions.   

 

One of the more eagerly awaited battles was due to kick off at 13:24 with the D-Zero,  RS Aero and Halo, but so keen to get away they hit the line a minute too early, quickly realising their mistakes returning for their allotted time slot.  Even then a port starboard between D-Zero designer Dan Holman and RS Aero Class Manager Peter Barton showed how fired up these two were.  Dan managed to pull away at the first mark,  but forgetting to leave the channel markers to starboard let Peter back into the race who led this little battle for the best part an hour.

 

Up front the Mirror put on a good fight for over an hour,  but as the finish approached was quickly over taken by the faster boats.  With the National 12 of John and Ollie Meadowcroft taking the lead for some time,  even managing to keep the much faster RS300 of Steve Bolland at bay for several minutes.  

 

But starting last and some 52 minutes after the first Mirror and with just over half an hour remaining in the 90 minute race,  the foiling Moth of Tom Offer literally flew threw fleet.  With ten minutes to go the Moth was still 1 lap down of the front of the race,  but being tracked at nearly 16 kts by the SailRacer GPS and around twice the speed of the rest was able to eat away the miles and win the race from the RS300