RS200 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club

RS200 Inlands at Grafham © Mike Shaw / www.fotoboat.com

RS200 Inlands at Grafham © Mike Shaw / www.fotoboat.com

Despite a ominous looking forecast being in place all the week before, 66 RS200’s made the trip to Grafham Water SC for this year’s Inland Championships. The fleet weren’t to be disappointed either as Saturday started with a lovely F4/5 before dropping to almost nothing and the cold seeping into everyone whilst Sunday was full on blasting all day long with a return to warmer temperatures.

Race one saw the rarely spotted Chris Pickles/Laura Westell get a jump on the fleet and open up an uncatchable lead, showing good downwind pace in the strong breeze. Mark Heather/Ed Cowell took the second race in a decreased breeze, again catching a great gust to jump out and away from the fleet. The final race saw the wind began to die however and shift to the south, leading to a one way race course and shortened course which benefitted the lighter weight teams, Tim Saxton/Sophie Weguelin just piping James & Eluned Stewart for the win.

The evening saw a great meal and disco laid on by the club, although it also witnessed the RYA’s finest Ian Martin/John Pink demonstrating how to fix a spinnaker pole with a saw and hammer, having tried to use it as a joust instead of something to fly a sail from. We can confirm that the attempt on Matt Mee’s life failed...

Sunday dawned wet and still but by the time of the fourth race, white horses had appeared and the sun was trying to poke its head out. The PRO treated the fleet to 4 practice starts (as a warm up?) before releasing them, with only 3 boats missing out after the black flag was used. Martin/Pink showed they can race as good as they can fix, having a consistent day rounding the top mark always in the top 3 but had to settle for a best result of 2nd in the last race. They were caught out, as were many of the fleet, by the random assortment of gusts flying of Grafham’s shore, which led to a great deal of place changing on the downwind legs.

Heather/Cowell opened their day with a win, but it was then left to Nick “the 1000 yard stare” Charles/Roz Allen to dominate helped by Nick’s hangover fading. They led both races virtually from start to finish and gave no one else a sniff of first place. Behind them, the podium places were shared around with the finishing order often being determined in the last hundred metres or so of the race.

Overall, Heather/Cowell took a relatively comfortable victory from local hero Saxton/Weguelin in 2nd and Charles/Allen in 3rd. Top silver division were Wembley’s finest Julian Bradley/Chloe Sideris in 24th just ahead of Roy McCubbin/Kirsty McSeveney. Bronze division was won by a comfortable points margin by Matt Bromley/Andrea Morgan in 30th from Lewis/Mike Frost.

Many thanks to Grafham Water SC for hosting such a great event and making sure that no one left the site with any killer shrimp... (nice natty outfits for the shrimp washers).

The season is now winding down but there are still the final events of all the regional series to come in the next few weeks before the end of season Last Shout champs as Rutland on 12/13 November.

Overall Results: