Flying 15 UK Nationals 2022

HAYLING ISLAND JULY 7 th – 10 th

42 boats entered for the Flying 15 UK Nationals 2022, continuing the smaller entries since both Covid and also the higher fuel costs in 2022, despite this being a qualification year. In fact, only 41 turned up and one boat only did one race before succumbing to Covid.

Boat numbers reached 4104 with Nathan Batchelor arriving with a hot off the press pre-sold boat, to race with Richard Rigg.

The fleet were also lucky in the tide states during the event, never having to fight the tides on their leaving and re-entering Chichester Harbour, although the long drag back up the beach got longer each day. This year’s solution to the problems by HISC were a young and fit beach team to take care of parking of trailers after launching and a tractor to supplement the self-help approach to getting back up the beach and ramp into the boat park (6 people a boat seemed to be the right number).

Winds overall were on the lighter side, only perking up when augmented by a sea breeze.

Frustration ruled on day 1

The first day got off to a frustrating start, with a tricky tide causing 6 failed starts before the wind died for 3 hours.

A combination of late wind changes, scrapped starts and general recalls frustrated the Race Officer and the fleet on the first day. A few competitors fell foul of the black flag on later starts, notable the Ian’s Pinnell and Cadwallader, FFI President Chris Waples and Simon Hunt and HISC F15 Fleet Captain Mark Nicholson and Steve Culpitt.

By 2pm the wind totally died and the fleet drifted around waiting for the new sea breeze to fill in. Race Officer Mark w huggers. Downwind was yet again another split between gybing and bearing off and this time it was no contest with those not gybing winning out down at the leeward mark. The second beat served to consolidate positions with no one in the leading group making the mistake of gybing on the second and last run.

Darling kept his patience though and repositioned the committee boat in anticipation and when the new breeze appeared shortly before his cut off time of 4pm, the fleet started cleanly in the new south westerly breeze.

The fleet split into two with Greg Wells and crew David Tulloch leading a group out to sea to take the benefit of the flooding tide. The other tracked along the shore before tacking out to sea. The result was a slight advantage for the shore