Gul RS700 Nationals at Hayling Island Sailing Club - Day 3

Racing continues on Tuesday during the RS700 nationals at Hayling © Lucy Jameson / www.aroundthecans.com

Force four fantastic

Day 3 of the Gul RS700 Nationals brought a great force four and a subdued but still challenging seaway to keep the fleet entertained. RYA judge Peter Fitt opened the day with a rules seminar which threatened to take over the entire day as more and more questions came from the floor. Many thanks to Peter for continuing to support the class championships.

Just to highlight peoples increased confidence in the conditions the first race resulted in the first general recall of the championship. The fleet managed to get away under a black flag. Again there was a real split in opinion as to the best way up the beat with most of the leaders taking the port side of the course. Paul Bayliss again managed a clean start and was able to power away to a safe lead by the windward mark followed by Jon Heissig. A lot of close racing throughout the fleet but the leading group were comparatively static until Jon let Tim Johnson and Nick Peters through to take second and third.

The second race was more of the same for the second race of the day with Paul Bayliss leading at the windward mark and ab le to gun it down the first downwind to take an unassailable lead. Tim Polglase rounded second and held this position until Tim Johnson closed up to challenge on the second run before taking the position on the last beat with Ian Nolan closing the gap in fourth.

The final race of the day was again started under a black flag. It was quickly apparent that the committee boat end of the line was favoured. Paul Bayliss again started well and placed a cover on his main rival Tim Johnson up the first beat with Pete Purkiss and Jon Heissig leading the chasing crowd. Jon was able to move through to third for a short while until pete found a big gain on the right and was able to challenge Tim for second. Tim Polglase worked his way up to fourth, just ahead of Tony Dencher. Pete Purkiss managed to get washed off the rack coming into the finish, (an extreme strategy to avoid writing the race report). A special mention should also go to Ian Swann who managed to keep his capsize score down in the last race to nearly get the top ten position he deserves. He still leads the gold fleet capsize league.... by a margin.

With the sailing done, the serious business of the day started with the annual Seasure Go-Karting challenge. This year saw the fleet split into teams for a Le Mans enduro type race. This was serious business and the racing was ‘robust’ to say the least. I won’t go into the details of the results, but I think it is fair to say we were all pleased to see tim Johnson win something this week, especially after he managed to overtake the correspondent under a red flag. Nice one Tim! Paul Bayliss looks secure in his championship lead, but with three races scheduled for the last day, the minor placings are still very open with Tim Johnson holding the advantage over Jon Heissig. In the silver fleet Aiden Mitchell had a storming day to take the lead from Andrew Collenette and Pete Shaw.

Results after Day 3: (7 races, 1 discard)