RS800 Emergence of Seasons Championship at Queen Mary Sailing Club

RS Emergence of Seasons Championship at Queen Mary Sailing Club © Paul Stainsby

With Winter approaching EOS championships were a chilly affair which may explain why numbers were down a little. Having had to cancel the End of Season Championships last year due to lack of water, Queen Mary S C bravely offered to re-run the event last weekend just as storm Emma (otherwise known as the Beast from the east) was approaching with a bucket load of snow. In the end the temperature was mild 4 degrees C but with a wind chill of minus 6 it was on the cold side of freezing.

The class Co Chair Luke McEwen had the best long range forecast having planned a knee operation which left him as a spectator for the weekend. Rumour has it he will be up and about for Rutland next month. He did send his Co Chair Emma out in an RS400 just to maintain fitness ahead of that event and with Jon Gorringe. They dominated Saturday with a 1,3,1 in the RS400 fleet. Not sure about Sunday but possibly Luke took pity on Emma as they did not take part in the Pursuit race.

The wind was blowing a healthy force 4-5 possibly gusting 6 but from the East. Your correspondent is normally crewed by his daughter Sophie who must have read the same forecast as Luke and made herself unavailable. Therefore yours truly had his son Ollie on board for the first time in at least 5 years. A brave man indeed! Having seen the RS700s off first Ralph decided that this was a day for those famous port-end flyers and comfortably crossed the fleet. Having not sailed together for a long period a conservative approach was called for if he wanted to keep his crew out for three races. Having waved Joe and Will through together with Zach and Max up the first beat it was time to test Ollie out downwind. Again no problems so back to chasing the youngsters. The art of windy cold sailing is to keep the mast out of the water. Unfortunately the rest of the fleet didn't quite have the 50 years' experience leaving the Singletons to take the first bullet, with Joe and Will second, and Zach and Max third.

RS Emergence of Seasons Championship at Queen Mary Sailing Club - photo © Paul Stainsby

Race 2 was much the same with the Singletons again completing a port tack flyer with Joe and Will in hot pursuit. Having waved them through again this time they did manage to keep the mast dry to take first place with the Singletons second and the Moss duo in third. Race 3 had become a war of attrition. The Singletons again started on port this time just ducking Joe and Will. However after one too many swims they decided to preserve their energy for Sunday leaving the old man of the fleet to take his second bullet with Cameron and Darrol bravely finishing 2nd. In the end only 19 of the 63 boats competing across all the classes completed 3 races on the Saturday due to the cold conditions and the Singletons lead the RS800 fleet overnight purely on the basis that they were the only boat to keep the big tall pointy thing vertical! Ollie was also more than pleased that his 5mm wetsuit was still dry as were his 2 pairs of wetsuit socks.

Sunday dawned with almost the same conditions, perhaps a bit lighter across the day but not much in it. The day involved an all in pursuit race which counted double. This meant that the Singletons still needed to win it to win the event. However Joe and Will sailed a blinder to take the win and the event overall. The course had too many two sail reaches to be ideal for the RS800 as evidenced by the pursuit race victory for the RS600 of Richard Smith with Joe and Will second. Ralph and Ollie had a good scrap with Zach and Max just losing out after a bad tack up the last beat but held on for second overall.

Thanks to all the team at Queen Mary who must have had a very cold weekend in the safety boats and on the committee boat. Also thanks to the shore crew who made launching and coming ashore a real doddle given the strong offshore breeze. Also I would like to thank Ollie for putting up with 4 races in the icy conditions just to humour his old man !!

See you all at Rutland for the Spring Championships if Spring ever arrives!

Overall Results: