Report by Jeremy Smart (North Sails UK)

The Royal Southern Yacht Club was the venue for the 2003 UK & Ireland X-332 National Championships. Situated on the banks of the river Hamble there was expected to be a large entry of boats owing to the increasing popularity of the X-332 in this area, and we weren’t disappointed with an entry list of 26 boats! I was sailing this regatta with Mike Brand and the ‘Exotic’ crew who had made the trip up from Ramsgate.

The racing was held over four days with two windward/leeward races each day on Thursday and Friday followed by a Solent race on Saturday and finally an intensive around the cans race on the Sunday.

The weather for the first day was excellent with 15-22 knot winds and sunshine! The racing on the windward/leeward courses was incredibly close, regularly seven or eight boats would be getting to the first windward mark within seconds of each other. The honours on the first day went to X-Therapist (Russell Hodgson) with a total of 4 points, being closely followed by Tundra (Donald Sharp), and Exotic (Mike Brand) on 6 points and Crikey (Nigel Theadom) on 7 points.

Friday produced similar excellent sailing conditions and equally close racing made even closer by the reward of Dubarry Sailing Boots for the days winning crew. With a 1st and a 3rd Exotic won the days racing with 4 points followed by Glide-Ex (Ian Dawson) with 6 points and Crikey with 7 points.

Saturday was the day for the Solent Race which was an important race to do well in as the results from this race could not be discarded. The race was started in a light North Westerly breeze and X-Therapist emerged as the early leader pulling out a 50 yard lead after the first few marks. The race was far from over however, and as the wind completely died X-Therapist and Exotic found themselves kedged 20 yards down tide from the mark with the entire fleet sailing inside them. Crikey spotted the new breeze first and took a lead that she was to hold onto for the rest of the race. Mexican Wave (Charles Coville) went well in the lighter conditions to take 2nd place with Tundra 3rd X-Factor (John Barrat/Paul Woodward) 4th and Exotic 5th. These results meant that going into the final day Crikey, Exotic and Tundra were all guaranteed top 3 places, but who was going to get what position was still very much undecided!

The sailing conditions on Sunday were near perfect with 10-14 knots of breeze and more sunshine! The fleet got away first time but, unfortunately Crikey did not have a good start and was to spend the rest of the race fighting her way back through the fleet. Reckless Rat (Tom Peters) emerged as the leader by the first mark closely followed by Exotic and Tundra. Exotic had to try to keep Tundra behind for the rest of the race to ensure taking the National Championship and so were using covering tactics at every opportunity!

The race was extremely close, after over three hours racing four boats finished within 20 seconds of each other. Reckless Rat maintained their lead and was first on the water but on corrected time was beaten into 2nd place by Exotic, with Tundra finishing only 8 seconds behind, closely followed by Glide-Ex.

The Royal Southern Yacht Club ran the regatta superbly, with both excellent racing and evening entertainments. The final award ceremony was unique in that every boat from 26th to 1st was awarded prizes, the Exotic owner and crew were delighted to accept the X-332 National Championship for 2003!

Next years National Championship is to be held from the Royal Temple Yacht Club in Ramsgate and promises to be an equally competitive event.