RS800 UK Grand Prix Round 1 at Stokes Bay Sailing Club

RS800 UK Grand Prix at Stokes Bay © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

RS800 UK Grand Prix at Stokes Bay © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

RS800 UK Grand Prix at Stokes Bay © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

Round 1 of the UK Grand Prix series kicked off at sun drenched blue sky mecca of Stokes Bay over 12/13 April. The double bonus was how the sunshine and the tide direction boosted the forecast wind to fun levels on both days with Saturday even being quite fruity over the legendary Stokes mogul field.

Most of the fleet have now adopted the new square top main sails. Whilst the last windy event at Grafham demonstrated that the original mains can be as fast in a blow this event was a demonstration of how the square tops can power the boat up and make it come alive in the more medium winds. That, together with looking even cooler, was exactly as the design brief intended.

Some great racing ensued. The top seven proved a very evenly matched tussle with anyone of them capable of carrying off the event if they could just pull off couple of top results and minimise any mistakes. This was exactly as it played out with 5 winners from 6 races and only 3 points separating the top 4.

James Date and Toby Wincer (RWO) were the only boat to take 2 wins and by keeping it tight in their other races they narrowly edged out the event. Luke and Emma McEwen (Gill) finished strongly to take 2nd with Peter Barton and Chris Feibusch (Crewsaver) winning the last race to move up to 3rd overall. Andy and Ally Jeffries always looked fast in their shiny new RS800 (apparently the kite sheets were wearing out on their old one) and it was only a poor finish on Sunday that kept them off the podium.

RS800 UK Grand Prix at Stokes Bay - photo © Tim Olin

Several of the UK fleet are off on tour to 'France Open Skiff' at Lac du Der, France, over Easter to join the keen and ever growing French fleet.

Next up in the UK is Eastbourne on 10/11 May for Round 2 and as ever the hospitality of Eastbourne SC, the Town's night-life and, not least, the epic wide open sailing waters by Beechy Head are all second to none with a bumper fleet expected in the build up to the much anticipated July Garda Europeans.

On-line entries to the Garda Europeans open soon, be sure to get yours in promptly to avoid disappointment as, as ever, it is likely to be an early sell out.

More Tim Olin photos from the event can be found here.

Overall Results: