Husband and wife crew Stuart and Sara Cureton (Lindford, Hampshire) continued their obliteration of the P1 150 class in the P1 SuperStock Championship at Hull Marina over the weekend (30/31 July) with their fourth and fifth victories from the first six races of 2011.
"It's been a good weekend, really enjoyed it", said Stuart, "Racing in estuaries isn't my favourite as it throws up all sorts of funny different water, as shown this afternoon (Sunday), but it's been good. There was some really tight racing, we had a good fight with Team Fox and Eclipse.
"I'm a bit injured from a few weeks ago, I've got a sore shoulder so the smoother the better at the moment although we do tend to go well in the rough. Everything went well in the calm though on Saturday so we can't complain, it's been a great event for us."
Second place during race one on Saturday evening went to Rose Lores (Stubbington, Hampshire) and Tom Hunter (Maidenhead) in Eclipse, just three seconds shy of the winners, although Sunday's race didn't work quite in their favour in the rougher conditions - not aided by the fact Hunter's inter-com went down, meaning hand signals were the order of the day!
"I was pleased with Saturday's race", said Rose, "The thing that was quite frustrating was that we felt quite evenly matched with Team Purple but as soon as they got ahead at the first turn that really did it as we were then in the dirty water and it was really hard to catch-up. We were really close, just two or three feet behind and getting all of their spray. Talk about hairy...but it was really exhilarating!
"Today we had the boat set up for calm water, in hindsight we knew we could have done with much more weight being further forward. It's really hard for me in those rough conditions, it was bouncing me all over the place from side to side and you need a lot of muscle power. We lost the comms too, as soon as we went round the first turn. Tom did a fantastic job with hand signals but we lost that instant instruction."
Team Fox, Martin Colligan (St Helier) and Liam McDermott (St Helier), finished second in the final race of the weekend to close to within just four points of Eclipse in the title battle with two events remaining this season - an improvement on fourth place during Saturday's encounter.
Colligan said: "We like it in the rough, we weren't getting great speed on the flat water yesterday but in the rough conditions there's room for errors to be made. If you don't make those errors you progress forward. We put some pressure on Stuart (Cureton) but then David (Toozs-Hobson) was putting pressure on us. It was pretty hairy out there, at one point I couldn't see at all - I had to rely on Liam."
MacDonald Mermaid, piloted by David and Kirsty Toozs-Hobson (Arundel) rounded out the podium in both races to seal a successful visit to East Yorkshire. Two third places have enabled the husband and wife team to climb from sixth to fourth in the standings.
"Far more fun today, they're the conditions we like", said David, "Yesterday was boring, just sitting there but today was a real fight with the boat the whole race, it was amazing. We almost hooked it - which is like a spin in a car on the straight - but it was really good fun. Two podiums, we'll take that."
Competitors from P1 150, and P1 250 Panther, will return to action on 27/28 August with a visit to Cowes in the Isle of Wight for the fourth of five events in the 2011 'Race to Liverpool' - which will conclude on 10/11 September at Albert Dock in the Merseyside city.
P1 150 Results - Race One: 1 Team Purple; 2 Eclipse; 3 MacDonald Mermaid; 4 Team Fox; 5 Black Magic; 6 Flying Sparks; 7 Aztec Racing; 8 RedP1 150 Results - Race Two: 1 Team Purple; 2 Team Fox; 3 MacDonald Mermaid; 4 Flying Sparks; 5 Eclipse; 6 Red; 7 Black Magic; 8 Aztec Racing Championship Points: 1 Team Purple, 117pts; 2 Eclipse, 95pts; 3 Team Fox, 91pts; 4 MacDonald Mermaid, 64pts; 5 Black Magic, 62pts; 6 Aztec Racing, 59pts; 7 Red, 56pts; 8 Flying Sparks, 52pts
