Boss Nationals at Nationals at Restronguet Sailing Club

by John Shelton 15 Jun 2004 23:41 BST 29-31 May 2004

Peter Bennett and John Shelton from Shoreham SC successfully defended their Boss Nationals title at Restronguet over the Bank Holiday weekend, with a day to spare.

Joining in with the ISOs, the Boss fleet enjoyed some excellent sailing on the first two days, with a variable 2-3 coming over the Cornish hills to provide some interesting shifts, and a nice ISO fleet to use as target practice. Using a loaner rig, and untried sails, Bennett and Shelton were rarely headed, except in Race 6, which saw John Swain and Ben Miller from Carsington take the lead, only to be wiped out in a gybe, along with the trailing Fatmen. It was a race to see who could get righted first, but having eaten too many pies the night before, the Fatman team were consigned to second, with Steve and Nick Murray from Datchet taking an uncharacteristic third place. This was after an interesting wind shift, while twin-wiring flat out up the beat, where they suddenly found the wind coming from leeward, result - double teabag.

On the last day, with the wind blowing up the Carrick Roads at 20-25 knots, and miserable rain, the Shoreham team decided to preserve their borrowed mast and posh sails, and let the others out to play. Murray took the first race with an impressive display of heavy weather boat-handling and exhilarating downwind speed, but not to be shown up, Swain and Miller scored a bullet in the final race, despite an impressive crash and burn on the last leg.

Overall an excellent weekend's sailing, well organised by Restronguet SC, and thanks to the ISO fleet for letting us play.

Overall Results:

Pos	Boat Type	Sail No	Boat Name	Helm	Crew	Club	Pts
1st	Boss	812	Fatman in the Bathtub with the Blues	Peter Bennett	John Shelton	Shoreham SC	7
2nd	Boss	796	Red Oktober	Steve Murray	Nick Murray	Datchet Water SC	11
3rd	Boss	762	IT Dynamics	John Swain	Ben Miller	Carsington SC	16
4th	Boss	802		Simon Peckham	Adrian Woodcock		22