Teams Allen sailor Ben Hutton-Penman and crew Abi Jayasekara recently attended the first major RS Feva event to be held out of Europe, the Allen supported World Championships in Clearwater, Florida.
“The RS Feva world championships were very tough and competitive with a very large range of light and heavy winds throughout the week. The event did not start as we had hoped, we scored an 11th, 5th & 2nd. It was a very light wind day, not our favourable conditions, however, my coach told me you never win or lose an event on the first day.
Having not had the best first day we concentrated on the task ahead. After a few more disappointing races we then found our stride going into Race 6 and 7, at which point we had broken the ice and found our flow with 2 bullets. Day 3 came around, again it was very light winds which we were not looking forward too. However, thanks to the Allen 60mm X2 AutoRatchet, which I have been testing, it made for perfect control of the mainsheet. It turned on and off just at the right moments depending on the pressure in the mainsail. This really helped us to get ahead of the competition and we managed to claim 2, 2, 1, which was so nearly two 1sts, going to a photo finish on the 9th race between us and Tom Story & Rupert Jameson.
Day 4 came around, bringing gusts of over 25 knots. Perfect for Abi and I. We managed to get 2 bullets in the first race’s of the day (race 11 and 12). However, in race 13 we were lying second in the race but sadly we had spinnaker problems, we pushed through and still managed to get a 4th. Sadly not what we wanted that day.
Overnight we were 6 points ahead. We headed out on to the water for the last day of racing with very little wind. The race committee persevered to get the first start of the day away, we had an amazing start, top 3 off the line and gaining momentum. Tom and Rupert, who where lying second overall, did not have a good start at all tacking into a large group of boats. Annoyingly the race committee abandoned the race due to the lack of wind. A couple of hours later the day was abandoned and Abi and I were World Champions.”
