RS100 Winter Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club

The RS100 fleet met at Grafham for their first open meeting of the year. A select group of 7 sailors, all sailing the 8.4 rig and including the current world champion, Alastair Dickson, turned up over the weekend, including a couple of new faces welcomed to the fleet.

Race 1 - The forecast was for 15 knots gusting to 25 knots in a cool southerly wind, but with the sunshine making a welcome showing. During the start sequence Mark Harrison tried to lead the fleet over the line by using the wrong buoy as the pin. Despite his best efforts the fleet got away first time. A tight first beat saw numerous place changes in a shifty breeze, but Alistair Dickson led at the first mark from Mark Harrison with David Smart third ahead of Greg Booth. Mark succeeded in passing Alistair downwind, but blew it yards from the finish, blaming a distant RS200 for a swim. This allowed Alistair and Greg to fight for the win with kites flogging on the tight reach to the finish with Alistair taking the bullet, Greg second and with David thanking Mark for the gift of third.

Race 2 - Another clean start in similar breeze. Alistair shot off upwind to round first only to gybe early into a hole. Mark and David dialled into a massive gust, so in childish pique Alistair threw his toys out and went for a swim to collect them. Towards the bottom of the run David was astounded when on starboard with class chairman Mark crossing on port safely, Mark inexplicably gybed right in front of him. Only expert seamanship avoided a collision. This let Greg back in the game. On the final run David kindly went for a swim on the last gybe, leaving Mark to take the gun followed by Greg then Alistair.

Race 3 - The fleet lined up a bit early, leading to a speedy reach down the line. Alistair led again at the first mark (yawn!) followed by Mark, Keiran Holt then Greg. Keiran's sudden appearance was down to mis-rigging his Cunningham in the first race and being a few seconds late on the time limit to make the second race. David caught up on the run, but took a dip at the bottom mark to let the leaders get away. Alistair was untouchable, partly a result of his extreme youth compared to the grey hair and spectacles of those around him. Mark avoided any of the normal mayhem that surrounds him to finish second followed by a fast finishing Greg from the fast improving Keiran.

The fleet then became the hub of the evening's social surrounded by a few pints. Sunday dawned with 10 knots gusting 18 knots with beautiful sunshine.

Race 4 - With a pin end bias, Alistair won the pin and disappeared off to lead from start to finish (yawn again). The rest of the fleet were very close with Gav Benbow showing some good windward speed to round third behind Kieron. There was some very close racing with numerous place changes where playing the shifts up the beat paid dividends. Alistair won with David finding wind shift corner taking second from Mark in third and Kieron fourth.

Race 5 - Playing the shifts was the order of the day and a close first beat saw Kieron showed excellent decision making to round first (no yawning this time) from Greg then Alistair who was finding the shifty conditions more challenging. Downwind was all about finding the gusts, which Greg did best to find his way past Kieron to take the win with Kieron second and David third.

Race 6 - Another shifty beat saw the lead change numerous times with Ian Gregory leading half way up the first beat, but he was beaten in the final few yards by a couple of nasty shifts letting David round first (no more yawning) followed by Mark who gybed off behind an RS200 into a big hole letting David get away and allowing Greg and Alistair past. At the bottom mark, Kieron and Ian went for some synchronised swimming with Mark dropping his mainsheet and going for a swim at the next top mark. This left David, Greg and Alistair to battle up the last beat. At the windward mark it was Alistair back in the lead yet again (yawn?) from Greg then David who gybed left into a gust. The two Port Dinorwic sailors went right to find the pressure, but David controlled the last mark rounding by being on the left to take the final race win from Alistair then Greg.

Everyone agreed that it had been a fantastic event with fast race turnarounds achieved by a very professional Race Officer and his team. Alistair had sailed very consistently to win overall, but the strength of the competition was underlined by seeing four different race winners in the six races. All were looking forward to rejoining battle at the sprint championships at Rutland on 12/13 April.

Overall Results: