The 2016 Viper 640 UK National Championship was held out of the Royal Lymington Yacht club over the 16th -18th September.

                                          photo by Aimee Harper

The fleet were greeted on day one by a strong and gusty North Westerly breeze with a little bit of sunshine. Sailing to the East of the river mouth in the Solent a course was set that crossed the very strong outgoing tide. PRO Malcom Mckeag offset the marks to compensate the current which made for some interesting racing and a very different approach to tactics.

Two teams fought a tight battle throughout the event. Both team Lawrence, Luca & Hector ; plus team David, Ian & Giles were racing their new Vipers for the first time. Both teams scored a first & second on day one.

Day two was almost a carbon copy of day one in wind and current direction. The strength of the wind was variable between 12 and 20 knots which along with the shifts meant it was snakes and ladders racing. The following days forecast was looking very light so it was decided to get an extra race in making four in one day. Again the battle continued between #259 & #260. Only in race 5 did another team fight back. David, Danielle & Innes took the gun in a photo finish. A win for #259 in race 6 gave them the title after the final day of the championship dawned true to the forecast with no wind.

A big thank you to RLYC who looked after the fleet both on the water, on the dock and on the shore.

1st David Hitcock, Ian Nicholson, Giles Chipperfied – HISC & LTSC

2nd Lawrence Crispin, Luca Crispin, Hector Cisneros – Stone SC

3rd David Pitman, Danielle Pitman, Innes McGowan – Weston SC