Fat Face RS Feva Grand Prix at Burghfield Sailing Club

The new look Feva fleet start © Bill Tucker

The new look Feva fleet start © Bill Tucker

The new look Feva fleet start © Bill Tucker

The new look Feva fleet started the new season with a bang at Burghfield last weekend. Neither April showers on the Saturday nor huge holes in the wind on Sunday could prevent Jonathan Lewis, Feva National Squad Coach, Burghfield member and PRO, from getting 5 good races in. The new look came courtesy of the new spinnakers many boats were sporting. Under a fantastic new sponsorship scheme for the class many boats now sail at the main events with fully logo’d spinnakers. A terrific sight.

Tim Gratton & Chris Taylor got off to a perfect start and were being chased down by Eilidh McIntyre/Cassia Roberts before just getting the first bullet of this Years Fat Face GP Circuit. This in fact showed two things. Firstly that Gratton/Taylor had wintered extremely well but secondly that there is a new group of hot female sailors coming through.

Peter Curtis, sailing with son James, showed though that whilst not having the outright speed and perfect manoeuvres of the young guns could still match them with years of accumulated wileyness. These two ended day 1 behind Tim/Chris in 2nd place with a pair of seconds. Burghfield is known for its shifts as well as its friendliness and efficiency so the April weather just exacerbated all these trends. Old Feva hands Bolinbroke/Heathcote had asteady opening day and lay in third whilst 4th and 5th were contested by Mothersele/Ellis and Alice Kent/Lucy Childs. Bolly & Matt had OK starts but then treated everyone to raw speed and perfect boathandling – the story of his weekend really. Alice and Lucy were revelling in their newfound competitiveness and the question was could they hold their nerve and prove the absence of fluke in their performance. That was answered affirmatively the next day!

The Sunday was considerably more dicey and required cool heads amongst the very gentle (a euphemism!) breezes. Tim and Chris made the perfect start to the season posting an unbroken sequence of bullets and discarding a first. The Curtis’ did a great job in safeguarding the previous days efforts whilst Bolly & Matt renewed their acquaintance with the podium as well in 3rd overall. Alex Mothersele and Hamish Ellis relearned an old lesson the hard way over the weekend (so we gather) – never use a brand new sail in anger without first giving yourself the time to ensure that you have tuned/set it right. The jib luff tension appeared to be set to tight for the conditions and results improved dramatically once that problem was sorted. They got that hated position just outside the main choccies – 4th.

The next 3 places were shared out amongst some of the winters most improved sailors who coincidentally were all female combinations. Alice Kent and Lucy Childs maintained their good form from Saturday and despite falling into a humungous hole in the final race, whilst well placed, had done just enough to beat Ruth & Tess Allan on countback. Alice & Lucy scooped the First all girl prize whilst happily for Ruth & Tess they walked of the prize for 1st Junior. Eilidh McIntyre and Cassia Roberts were 7th overall and 3rd girls having just edged out Tim and James Norris in 8th. Alex and Stephi Orton completed a good weekend for the girls by being 4th girls and 9th overall having sailed exceptionally well on the Saturday. Completing the top 10 was Hugo Jones-Warner and James Poyner who were sailing together competitively for the first time (and only 2nd all together!) and took the first day to begin to bed the teamwork in. Amber Brown made it a good day for the home club coming in at 11th overall with brother Jamie.

There are to many other sailors to mention all but a couple of boats who stuck out for completely different reasons were Sophie Andrews and Vicky Payne in 16th and Tom Adams and Joe Ball in 17th. Sophie and Vicky because they are a young team and have come through their first winters training with the Transition Squad and Tom and Joe because they took a break over the winter and have clearly not lost their basic skills – they just need sharpening up now! Lastly then Robert Baddley and Dan Bullock made a splash on Sunday coming 7 & 8 despite not having been able to make it on Saturday whilst Laurence Gibbons and new crew Robert Laurenson came unstuck with a RAF & an OCS upsetting 3 great results.

A fantastic first GP of the season and the build up to the nationals in 5 weeks has started.(Enter on-line at www.rsfevanationals.com ) First up though are the Chichester and Emsworth Opens next Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Overall Results: