Fun in the sun on Saturday at the International Paint Poole Regatta 2026
With a light offshore breeze of 5 to 8 knots in the morning, and a thermal breeze developing in the afternoon, the International Paint Poole Regatta 2026 started under scorching sunshine. This was also the second day of the IRC European Championships, after they started on Friday.
With experienced race officers across the courses, the most was made of the breeze in the bay, resetting the marks in preparation for the sea breeze which kicked in during the afternoon.
In the IRC Southern Championship Class Toby Gorman’s ‘Stan the Boat’ and Sue Brown’s ‘Astronomix’ are tied at the top, although the latter struggled in the final race of the day, so they have a worse discard.
The IRC European Championship fleets were further offshore and all the fleets, bar IRC 2, have now completed six races, having started their event on Friday.
Malcolm Offord’s Braveheart leads IRC 0, with a string of three bullets from race 4 onwards.
The 13-strong IRC 1 fleet has a tie at the top with ‘Impetuous’ from the South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club and ‘Jack Rabbit’ from The Netherlands on 11.5 points. The half point is from race five, where the two boats had exactly the same corrected time to finish, so they scored 2.5 points each while the Belgium team on ‘Moana’ took the race victory.#
IRC 2 has completed one less race, with Olly and Sam Love’s ‘Frank 4’ holding a 4 point lead over Dirk van Rompuy’s Belgian team ‘High Five’ in second in the 17 boat fleet.
The largest of the IRC Europeans fleets is IRC 3 with 18 boats, sees Sam Laidlaw’s 1990 Vrolijk-designed Quarter Tonner ‘Aguila’ dominating on 5 points, 12 ahead of their nearest rival. The only blemish in the 2016 Canford Cup winner’s scoreline came in race 6 with a 4th.
The fleet came ashore to free beer and great value food at Parkstone Yacht Club to cap a day which was both exhilarating and exhausting.
Sunday’s forecast is even hotter, with a thermal breeze beginning to build in the bay. With the exceptional May sunshine there are certainly worse places to be!
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