Contessa 26 National Championships at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club

The Contessa 26 National Championships were hosted by Royal Lymington Yacht Club on 7 and 8 September. In a predominantly light airs event the club provided some excellent racing under PRO Malcolm Mckeag.

Three races were run for three Classes, Class 1 (IRC) class 2 (Class Handicap) and Class 3 (Local Handicap - white sails) with additional tandem results for combined overall Class handicap results. The course format for all three classes were round the cans type racing.

For the first time the event had an international flavour, with Kurt Brewee entering Bijou from Belgium, who was well rewarded for his efforts with an overall win in Class 2 over previous Class 2 champion Richard Pickance in Thousand Knights III.

The results for both Classes 1 and 2 went to the wire and were last race cliff hangers. In Class 1 the well sailed Brizo of George Smith and his young local contemporary crew including Hattie Rogers won race 3 which gave them the win in Class 1 and overall on countback from Jiminy Cricket (M and B Harrison), with Ross and Sarah Appleby's High Potential finishing third on overall points and the beautifully and recently refurbished Coco of Parkstone (Peter Saxton) in fourth place.

In Class 3 Rumpul recently acquired by Victoria McPherson and sailed with husband Sandy and their six year old daughter making up the family crew were the winners over Bob Lombardelli's Alboran.

Overall Results: (overall place in brackets)

Class 1
1. Brizo (George Smith) (1)
2. Jiminy Cricket (Mike and Barbara Harrison (2)
3. High Potential (Sarah and Ross Appleby) (3)
4. Coco of Parkstone (Peter Saxton) (4)
5. Elinor (Rupert and Justin Houlton) (7)

Class 2
1. Bijou (Kurt Brewee) (6)
2. Thousand Knights III (Richard Pickance) (5)
3. Curvaceous (Deborah and Mark Arnold) (8)
4. Little Corina (Wayne Barker) (10)
5. Sulali (Simon Jollands) (11)
6. Seahorse (Diana Nicholson) (13)

Class 3
1. Rumpul (Victoria McPherson) (8)
2. Alboran (Bob Lombardelli) (12)