Victory Class 90th Anniversary Eastern Solent Weekend

As part of their 90th Anniversary celebrations, six Victorys raced over to Seaview on Friday afternoon in quite bouncy conditions.

First to finish on the SVYC line was Zilch (Z75) helmed by John Scammell; second was Zelia (Z54 - Geoff Dixon) and third was Zada (Z79 - Nick Benham). Z48 Isabel helmed by Jim Downing tacked early only to find himself rather close to the swimmers on Seaview beach! Subsequently they were joined by Zircon (Z67 - James Jopling) and on Saturday morning by Seagull (Z73 - Jim Page). After a very jovial informal supper at SVYC on Friday evening, crews met up on the staging mid morning on Saturday and as planned had a relatively short one round race around the SVYC buoys.

Victory Start Race 2 Saturday

Looking completely in control, and making their spinnaker work well on the run to the leeward mark, Zilch (Z75) was the first to cross the finish line ahead of Zada (Z79) with Zelia (Z54) third. With the fickle SSE'erly breeze coming and going, the third race was essentially a passage race to Under Tyne - a challenging beat as it turned out. After a tight start close to the inner distance mark. it was soon evident that the front three were going to be the same boats (in the same order) as the previous race.

Victory Class 90th Anniversary Eastern Solent Weekend - photo © Mike Samuelson

The final race of the day was another 'round the cans' race, making use of Tara as the windward mark, Fitzwilliam as the wing and Britten as the leeward mark; set three times round with the requirement to go through the line to complete each round. After a clean start (just) it was again Zilch (Z75), Zada (Z79) and Zelia (Z54) who lead the fleet doing well to locate the correct buoys in unfamiliar waters.

Victory Start Race 4 Saturday

Although the front group seemed to make light work of the fickle breeze, the last few boats struggled to stem the increasingly strengthening tide taking boats, against their wishes, back to Seaview. Indeed Dolphin (Z9) realised that they were on a looser so sensibly decided to retire and use their outboard to help them to the overnight moorings at Under Tyne. As the leaders had already taken an hour and a half as they came to complete the second round, the third round was abandoned and the S Flag (shorten course) was displayed.

Victory Class 90th Anniversary Eastern Solent Weekend - photo © Mike Samuelson

After an excellent bbq at BSC on Saturday evening, it had been agreed that crews would meet at BSC the following morning at 10:15 to be ferried out to the Under Tyne moorings with the aim of the passage race back to Portsmouth starting at 11:00 so as to be off Seaview at 11:30 when the Red Arrows were doing a display over Ryde Sands. In the event it took a couple of boats a bit longer to rig but with the breeze holding and despite the very biased line, the seven Victory's (Zada Z79 having returned the previous late afternoon) and although it was a beat all the way, good progress was made and they were treated to their own display overhead! Also a timely reminder for some of how far out Ryde Sands stretches! Self finishing off Suffolk Sails, the front three boats were Z48 - Isabel; Z54 - Zelia and Z70 - Unity who all finished within three minutes of each other after a two hour race. Counting all 5 races, the top three overall were Zilch (Z75) helmed by John Scammell; Zelia - Z54 helmed by Geoff Dixon and Zada - Z79 helmed by Nick Benham.

Victory Class 90th Anniversary Eastern Solent Weekend - photo © Mike Samuelson

A fun weekend which it is hoped can be repeated again soon. Its been too long since the Victorys were regular visitors to the Eastern Solent.

Additional photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBxzAm

Overall Results: