JPWatersports RS200 Scottish Tour at Largs Sailing Club

Thirteen RS200 arrived at Largs Marina for the third event of the JP Watersports Scottish Tour on Saturday 20th of May, where they were met by grey skies, a steady stream of drizzle and a shifty force 2 which promised some tactical racing with large gains to be made for those able to sniff out the breeze.

As the sailors headed out onto the water the rain dissipated and the sky cleared a little giving pleasant conditions for racing. Race 1 was a close affair, the fleet seemed to be shuffled after every leg, indicative of the highly competitive and close racing that the Rs200 fleet is famous for, but in the end long time RS200 sailor and legend Robbie Burns pulled through to take the win.

The next 3 races followed a similar format to the first race with the key being to stick with the majority of the fleet and to sailing fast to avoid large numbers on the score card - a lesson we painfully learnt in the second race when we split from the fleet heading out right encouraged by good compass numbers all the while oblivious to the rest of the fleet on the left-hand side shooting upwind in good pressure to leave us rounding the windward mark in near last place. However, in the last race local sailors Andrew Corlett and Callum Forsyth showed the fleet that there were some huge gains to be made by correctly predicting the pressure and rounded the first windward mark near 150m in front of the next boat and going on to win the race.

At the end of the first day the scores were extremely tight with just 5 points separating the top 5 boats and everything to play for on day 2. Big thanks to the race committee who did a fantastic job managing to fit in all four races despite the shifty wind conditions. Those mark layers must have some serious guns!

At the start of Day 2 all of the crews travelling from Port Edgar woke up from a fantastic night’s sleep in beds! Courtesy of the ever-generous Martin Faulkner and were delighted to see large winds amassing, so after a quick game of Scalextric and a bacon roll breakfast we piled into cars eager to head out on the water.

The key to day 2 was in balancing the extra tide out to sea against the extra pressure in shore and handling your boat in the ever-building breeze. The first race saw some capsizes and our own boat taking its first ever win! In high spirits, we went into the next race and were drawn into match racing tactics with Josh Kerr and Fenella Corlett who pulled through to take a bullet scooping their 3rd win of the event!

The final race saw high winds, big wipe outs and furious downwind reaching in near-slack tide. The shore was now heavily favoured, putting a premium on good starts and holding a lane inland. In the end, Robbie burns took the win after boat troubles caused him to retire in the previous race followed closely by ourselves and Martin Faulkner who found some pressure out to sea making some impressive gains on the last down wind.

After the third race the wind was still building and the race officers wisely chose to stop racing for the day. This led to our own boat winning the event followed by Josh Kerr and Fenella Corlett in second and Martin Faulkner with crew Ashleigh Brown in third.

Come join the fleet for the next event at North Berwick on 3rd-4th June.