RS800 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club

RS800 Inlands at Grafham © Mike Shaw / www.fotoboat.com

RS800 Inlands at Grafham © Mike Shaw / www.fotoboat.com

29 boats turned out for the penultimate 800 competition of the season, the inland championships at Grafham Water Sailing club. Light winds were forecast for the whole weekend, so the fleet was pleasantly surprised to see a good 10 knot breeze blowing down the lake while rigging up, unfortunately this had diminished to a fickle 5-7 knots by the time of the first start.

The three races on Saturday were a case of eyes out for the breeze, with significant gusts coming in from the edges of the course making managing the fleet tricky. Tom Halhead and Stu Jagger made the most of this in the first two races to post a commanding 1,2, but were undone in the last race as the breeze shut off on the right hand side of the run relegating them to 15th leaving Dave Hivey and Bart Bridgen as overnight leaders.

Sunday morning dawned foggy and still, with a proportion of the fleet confident that no sailing would take place, Halhead however was petitioning hard for racing to take place, keen to discard the 15th place. Indeed when the breeze filled in to a 'steady' 3-5 knots there was some reluctance to get onto the water.

The wind stayed in for long enough for the fleet to complete one more race, won convincingly by Tom/ Stu. Seeing the lake turn glassy, the remaining races were abandoned, leaving Tom/ Stu in first place overall, Dave/ Bart second and Dave Steed/ Louise Fisher 3rd. The silver division was won by Oliver Scrimshaw and James Penty in 11th place overall.

Many thanks to GWSC for defying a poor forecast and giving us some great racing, food and beer. Hopefully we'll get a great turnout for the last event of the season, The Crewsaver End of Season Championships to be held at Datchet Water sailing club on the 10th/11th November with the rest of the RS classes.

Overall Results: