written by Matias Collins on August 30 of 2025 and read by 466
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The Lochaber Yacht Club, once more is organizing the British Nationals, the traditional Yacht Club is located at Fort William, Scotland, the home of the northern Soling fleet in the United Kingdom this despite the harsh winter, just because the Soling is the boat that can perform and hold on to the conditions, and therefore super loved at the area.
The event this 2025 pulled out two visitors from Ireland, both teams sailing their first Soling regatta in the class, one of them a young team under 18, the other Irish team also having young blood, they come from the TSBC (Tralee Bay Sailing Club, from Fenit village on County Kerry, southwest coast of Ireland).
Todays' racing had light air for the first two races the one was shifting and changing all the time, by the third race it picked up increasing the velocity right at the start but then fading it again during the race. The fourth race was more tricky than the others since it had an abnormal direction from the southeast but fluctuated greatly.
Legend local sailor Hamish Loudon despite under recovery after a serious fall over the stairs a couple of months ago sailing his beloved Solaris GBR 161 with Victoria Kimber and his son Ian Loudon (welcome back professor) were the most consistent of the fleet achieving two bullets a 6th then a 4th to end the day leading the overall score.
Another local Keith Falconer sailing GBR 157 with Karen Dean and Ian Fleming had all top 5 places with finishes as 3,4,4,3 becoming the second overall three points ahead GBR 155 with Gary Richardson sailing GBR 155 with Karl Sloane and Andrew Ryan and finishes 2,6,3,6.
The bullet at the third race was achieved by GBR 144 sailed by Andy Riches with Tim Seddon and Vince Dean. The one at the fourth race went to IRL 2 sailed by Daihti Murphy, Cormac Murphy and Rachel Deasy the team also sailing their first Soling regatta.
Tomorrow more races are scheduled and GBR 125 will have a new composition, more boats are needed in the region, just to imagine that team IRL 2 is using a local boat, and IRL 4 is sailing the boat IRL 2 because a month ago, the real IRL 4 was hit on the road to an event and lost its rudder and tip of the mast.
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