Gul RS400 Grand Prix at Carsington Sailing Club
by Richard Brown 20 Apr 2010 08:13 BST
17-18 April 2010
Gul RS400 Grand Prix at Carsington © Pete Shaw
Despite a light forecast, 18 teams attended the 1st event of the Gul RS Grand Prix at Carsington SC. A decision was made early on Saturday to hold 4 races back to back on day 1 due to Sunday’s forecast being particularly poor!
The race officer had the difficult job of setting a joint course with the K6s in a very light shifty breeze which to add to his troubles was blowing across the lake, but he managed to get the fleet started and race 1 was led most of the way round by 1319 (Leighton King & Richard Brown) until the last run when 892 (Alex Horlock & Ed Pearce) managed to sneak through and take the win.
Alex and Ed appeared to have mastered the tricky conditions and took line honours again to win race 2 followed by 1186 (Dave Exley and Nigel Hall) in 2nd and 1328 (Mike Sims & and reserve crew Joe Hartigan) taking 3rd.
Race 3 was won by 1321 (Jim Downer & Jon Price) after recovering from a poor start with Dave & Nigel 2nd and 1014 (Hamish Gledhill & Caroline Exley) taking 3rd.
Dave & Nigel continued with their consistency and won the last race with Mike & Joe Hartigan 2nd and Alex and Ed 3rd.
After 4 races in just over 4 hours, everyone was ready for the curry and a few beers in anticipation of what Sunday would bring!
Sunday dawned as predicted with virtually no wind so the decision was made early to abandon racing and let everyone go home. So it was Alex and Ed declared winners, 2nd (tied on points) were Dave & Nigel with Mike and Joe taking 3rd.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Helm | Crew |
|---|
| 1 | Alex Horlock | Ed Pearce |
| 2 | Dave Exley | Nigel Hall |
| 3 | Michael Sims | Joe Hartigan |
| 4 | Leighton King | Richard Brown |
| 5 | Hamish Gledhill | Caroline Exley |
| 6 | Jim Downer | Jon Price |
| 7 | Howard Fairbrother | Nathan Pinch |
| 8 | Carl Gibbon | Chris Grosscurth |
| 9 | Nathan Poulton | Tom Goddard |
| 10 | Mark Reddington | Colin Staithe |
| 11 | John Cooper | Becci Wigley |
| 12 | Nick Simmons | Louise Hosken |
| 13 | Mark Greaves | Alan Woosey |
| 14 | Rebecca Hurd | Mark Antony Brock |
| 15 | Howard Eeles | Richard Gute-Morris |
| 16 | James Bottoms | Anne Hulbert |
| 17 | Shawn Woodcock | Tony Cliff |
| 18 | Ollie Shaw | Mike Berry |