TWO American teams gave the British a run for their money in local waters in the recent Sigma 33 Association's Inter-Club Team Racing Championships hosted by the Hamble River Sailing Club.

Teams from New York YC and Ida Lewis YC competed with crews from the Royal Thames YC, the Sigma 33 Association and the Hamble River SC with the latter winning overall over nine rounds.

The event, now in its 17th year, saw two round robins sailed over the standard team racing course of a beat followed by a short beam reach to starboard. A running leg was followed by another starboard reach and a final beat to the finishing line.

Saturday's weather had a traditional feel with the wind blowing straight up The Needles Channel at 25 knots and decreasing with the tide. This created prob-lems for the New York boat which suffered damage to her main before the first race and the initial match between New York and Ida Lewis had to be sailed on Sunday morning.

Both New York and Hamble River won their early matches and so round four proved crucial. Hamble's Jonty Sherwill managed to cover New York's Rich du Moulin and Peter Lawson, leaving his teammates, Phillip Meakins and Jeremy Vines, edged third boat Heather Gregg in last place.

This gave Hamble a narrow win and ensured they ended the first day as leaders. Both the Royal Thames, last week's winner, and the Sigma 33 team shared victories over each other and Ida Lewis.

By Sunday, the weather had improved and the wind was down to eight knots but was backing towards the East for most of the racing period. This meant a lot of mark moving by the support boats to keep the course oriented correctly. However, the lower wind speed meant that full sail could be carried and spinnakers used.

Round nine matched Hamble River and New York again. As the top two teams, their pre-start manoeuvres were keen and led to a totally obscured line at the start and a general recall for the teams.

The re-started race went to Hamble River with less than a minute covering all six boats. In the final set of races, Royal Thames became only the second team to beat New York. The Sigma Association finished ahead of Ida Lewis by virtue of scoring more points. Results:

Hamble River Sailing Club (Jonty Sherwill on Heritage, Phillip Meakins on Powder Monkey and Jeremy Vines on Harmony) , 2 New York Yacht Club (Peter Lawson on Ephesian, Rich du Moulin on Buckshot, Heather Gregg on Jupa) 3 Royal Thames YC (Doug Harckham on Auditrac, Peter Diamond on Sixes and Sevens, Peter Ines-Ker on Retribution), 4 Sigma 33 Association (John Bartle on Sloop John B, Chris Haswell on Popje and Eddie Lee on Skybird) 5 Ida Lewis YC (Charlie Shoemaker on Lucent, Andrew Burton on Vela, Whitey Russell on Bounce Back).

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.