Royal Corinthian One Design Summer Regatta

by John Waples 26 Jul 2017 13:25 BST 22-23 July 2017

Royal Corinthian One Design Summer Regatta © Tammy Fisher

Justin Waples,Steve Rands and Elizabeth Rands win the Royal Corinthian One Design Summer Regatta © Tammy Fisher

The great thing about the Royal Corinthian One Design regatta is there is nowhere else to host it. Forget all the bother of loading up your boat to drive it to some corner of Europe, the hours waiting for a ferry, the chore of packing up after the last race and the long drive home brooding over that windshift that robbed you of certain victory.

Instead after a few convivial drinks at the bar, simply walk up the pontoon and take the club launch to your boat. All the RCOD sailors can heartily recommend it! It's even easier if the event coincides with the club's Caribbean style Summer Party on the Saturday evening, which had an extra bit of frisson this year with Tony, the barman, wearing a rather fetching garland.

Once again, the fleet owes its thanks Edwin Buckley and Team Phoebe for laying on four races on Saturday and three on Sunday. The weather was brisk, the sun shone and the competition was fierce during four windward leeward and three river races.

This year we invited the Royal Burnham One Designs to join and six pitched up for the first day with Edwin suggesting that we should all start together. With a turn-out of nine RCODs that made the start line challenging, potentially very expensive but a lot of fun which fortunately passed without incident.

Two facts emerged from the weekend, the RBODs are consistently faster in a breeze than the RCODs and just as competitive as their sister fleet.

Royal Corinthian One Design Summer Regatta - photo © Tammy Fisher

For the record, Chip Cole in White Rose, crewed by Nicola Hastwell and Rory Munro, made a clean sweep of the six RBODs that took part and next year hopefully more will join. With these eighty year old plus wooden boats (nearly all looking in great condition), we have something special on the river and it is great to see the two clubs work together.

As for the RCODs, it was hotly contested with fierce tacking duels throughout the fleet over the course of the two days. Justin Waples and Steve Rands with his daughter Elizabeth, secured victory with five wins, followed by John Reid who made his debut this year in Corinna with his son James. He was tied on points with Sue Law in Coralie (crewed by husband Ant and John Newcombe) but won on count back.

Here's to a great regatta, to Team Phoebe and to John Waterhouse making a return to the water after a knee operation.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail	Boat	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Pts
1	RC12	Cormorant	Justin Waples	Steve Rands and Elizabeth Rands	1	1	4	2	2	1	1	8
2	RC7	Corinna	John Reid	James Reid	7	3	2	6	1	2	3	17
3	RC9	Coralie	Sue Law	Ant Law and John Newcombe	2	2	3	3	17	3	4	17
4	RC16	Corpo Santo	John Waples	Trudi Churchward and Ian	3	7	10	5	3	5	2	25
5	RC6	Coryphee	John Apps	Mike Apps Vince Ball and Andrew McArdle	6	10	6	8	4	6	5	35
6	RC14	Coriander	Peter Willoughby	Mike Burrows Mark Burrows and Lynn Frost	13	5	9	7	6	4	6	37
7	RB1	White Rose	Chip Cole	Nicola Hastwell and Rory Munro	5	4	1	1	17	17	17	45
8	RC8	Corsair	Andy Barr	Fiona Bell and David Shapiro	10	11	8	10	7	8	7	50
9	RB11	Onyx	Dan Wastnage	Mike Sheilds	4	6	5	4	17	17	17	53
10	RC5	Coram	Will Wallis	Matt Jayasekara Luke Wallis and Rene Nel	12	12	17	17	5	7	8	61
11	RC3	Corella	Barry Lewis	Helen Oliver and Matthew Lewis	11	8	11	9	17	17	17	73
12	RB15	Aquamarine	Angela Shephard	Matt Shephard	8	9	17	17	17	17	17	85
13	RB2	Red Jacket	Same Riva	Mel Lewis and Jane Harris	15	14	7	17	17	17	17	87
14	RB23	Amanda		Sarah Hastwell	9	17	17	17	17	17	17	94
15	RB9	Whimbrel	Ali Devlin	Chris Devlin Andy Ramus and Julie Wilkinson	14	13	17	17	17	17	17	95
16	RB3	Gannet	Tye Wichard	Neill Scott Josephine Challis	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	102