Gul RS400 Nationals at Mounts Bay Sailing Club - day 1

Day 1 of the 2009 Gul RS400 nationals dawned with good old Cornish mizzle.... but a great wind and some lovely rolling waves for awesome downwind fun with a southerly breeze, waves building from it over the last few days! There was also a fine increase in the fleet size with numbers boosted to a very competitive 65 boats.

Dave Hivey and Emma Clarke stamped on the fleet the benefits of sailing every week since late July and won both races to win the day prize!

The wind angle was pretty consistent all day around12-16 knots and the key to winning was boat speed as gains were made on both sides of the course.

Gate starts with a boosted fleet of 65 boats left John Cooper and Becci Wigley regretting their 10th overall at last years nationals! In the first race, Alex Fleming and Joe Hartigan led convincingly up until the last beat of the 4 lap race when Hivey/Clarke picked up a windshift and took the lead. The first race was very tight however for the full race with the top 5 all finishing very close to each other. Mike Sims/Andrew George 2nd and Chris and Dan Martin in 3rd. Good length race, great to get one down!

Race 2 and one of the only major windshifts of the day took place before the pathfinder was released, hence general recall and a second gate start was run - all good practice for Nick Simmons and Lou Hosken to wave at the fleet! This time Hivey/Clarke did the start of a horizon job on the fleet, finishing a minute before the next boat in the final reckoning. They were able to lead the fleet from the first windward mark and eaked out more of a lead revelling in the clear and slightly stronger breeze. Josh Metcalfe/ Iwan Basten finished 2nd with Dave Jones/Mark Hogan making up the top 3, all from Liverpool/North Wales!

As with all nationals, the fleet is split into gold, silver and bronze. Chris and Jane Bailey were day winners of the silver and Paul and Sam Tyson from Gurnard the bronze - bottles of wine for all.

Evening ents were a coaching seminar from James Downer and a quiz from quiz master Maples - all well enjoyed and well attended by the fleet! We have excellent prizes from LDC for the top buddy team (made up of one boat from each fleet) and doing well in the quiz, as well as on the water is the best way to secure your success!

Writing this on Monday morning, the wind has now swung to westerly and coming off the Penzance shore, and has dropped, BUT the sun has come out! So we gain the sun and loose the wind! Shifty sailing today, the results could be totally different, should be an interesting week!

Results after Day 1: