Close But No Cigar at the Dartmouth Royal Regatta 29th August/1st September After a 3rd in 2001, 1st in 2000 and 3rd in 1999 Fandango was beaten by the narrowest of margins into 2nd place at this year's Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta by the Ker 11.3 Minnie The Moocher. The format was 5 races over four days: one modified Olympic on Thursday, two Trapezoids on Friday, a Coastal on Saturday and another modified Olympic on Sunday. Race 1 was held in a medium breeze of around 10-13 knots and after three and a half hours Fandango corrected out 18 seconds ahead of Minnie with the Mills 37 Thunder 2 (winner of Cork Week IRC 0) in third. We were particularly pleased with the result as Minnie had clean air throughout the race whereas we had battled around the course with Thunder, Exabyte 2 (IMX 40) and Bare Knuckles (Prima 38 National Champion). In Race 2 the start was one to forget as we started about a minute late after stripping our mainsheet winch with 3 minutes to go! We fought our way back through the pack on the first beat showing fantastic boatspeed with our Checkmate Carbon Heavy No.1 set. Bare Knuckles pulled away from Fandango during the last half of the race to win on corrected followed by Fandango and Exabyte 2. In Race 3 we again had a good tussle with Bare Knuckles but this time the result was a first for Fandango on corrected with Minnie in second and Knuckles in third. Race 4 was the Coastal and as a boat that set up primarily for windward-leeward racing we knew this was never going to be a good one for us! Minnie flew around the track that involved a lot of reaching and eventually won by a comfortable 4 minutes on corrected time from Exabyte with the J120 Marionette in third after a couple of great Asymmetric legs. Going in to the last race Fandango held a 1,1,2,4 score to Minnie's 1,2,2,4 so it was very close. The committee set a long 5 lap race which was just as well for us after a start that helmsman Robin Berwick described as his "worst ever"! Fandango worked through the fleet after rounding the first windward mark in eighth position. The course included a couple of tight spinnaker legs that Minnie flew on and when the results were calculated she was first by over 6 minutes on corrected. On Fandango we were pleased however to have clawed our way up to second! This left both Fandango and Minnie scoring a 1,1,2,2 and discarding a 4. As she had won the last race the Regatta was therefore hers. On reflection second in a fleet of 26 boats comprising a wide variety of boats and including two Cork Week class winners was not too bad! What was evident throughout the event was that the work we have done on Fandango's sail wardrobe now means we have enough speed to enable us to recover from a poor start or going the wrong way up the first beat. Roger Cerrato, Banks Sails Back to Fandango minisite homepage