YM’s Geoff Pack Scholar Ben Meakins has been taking a busman’s holiday aboard his father’s Sigma 38, Festina Lente, racing in the Garmin Hamble Winter Series.

Racing was abandoned for all fleets on Day 7 of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series due to strong winds and poor visibility in the race area.

The committee boat crew had encountered extremely bad visibility in heavy rain squalls to the extent that they were unable to see the proposed pin end mark. It was also consistently blowing 30-35 knots and racing would have been both unsafe and very miserable. A reluctant decision was made to send the 30 or so boats that had come out to play back home without a race.

Even so with only two races left in the schedule Festina have an unbeatable series lead in the IRC3 class.