Louis Morris

Stena Line Cup 4

Last weekend was Stena Line Cup 4 at Christchurch, and I won! That makes it two events in a row!
A big thanks to event sponsors Stena Line, and also to all the UKWA team that make it possible.

It was an awesome weekend racing in the Raceboard Fleet. Saturday morning was overcast, with light westerlies giving gusty and shifty conditions. I had a great start in Race 1, but dropped to 4th on the second beat in the unpredictable conditions. With the wind becoming increasingly unstable the race committee postponed until after lunch.

After lunch, the sun appeared, and we were greeted by a consistent cross onshore wind of 9-11 knots SW, which built to 12-14 knots during the afternoon, my favourite conditions! Comfortably planing, but not too overpowered for 9.5. We managed to complete 4 more races, I continued to have good starts, surprising myself with my acceleration off the line, and won race 2 and 5, with a second place behind Mark Kay in race 4. I was leading Race 3 until I over-stood the mark on the last downwind, allowing Mark Kay and Marc Carney to overtake. I felt like I had really good speed upwind, and pumped hard downwind to point deeper than anyone else, but Marc Carney was flying upwind on his Mega Cat, and I felt I lacked a bit of straight line speed from Mark Kay.

I started on Sunday in 2nd place, trailing Mark Kay by only 1 point. With overcast conditions, and drizzle, the wind was not able to increase to the strength we had yesterday, but there was enough wind for close racing, and more wind than on Saturday morning. I won the first race, I was just on the edge of planing downwind, so pumped hard all the way to stay planing and put a sizeable margin between myself and Mark. This put me on tied points with Mark Kay. The wind dropped below the planing threshold, and it was neck and neck until I squeaked past Mark after he misread the number of laps. Mark needed to finish two places ahead of me in the last race to win outright and looked comfortable after my shocking port tack start due to the strong tide flowing up the course. I managed to claw back a 2nd place in the race to take the event win.

Results:
1 - Louis Morris 8 points (Tushingham XR 9.5, Phantom 380)
2 - Mark Kay 9 points (Demon VG7, Phantom 377)
3 - Tom Naylor 21 points (Tushingham XR 9.5, Phantom 380)
Full Results
Official Event Video: