RS400 Coaching & Racing Open at Queen Mary Sailing Club

Queen Mary hosted a one day Southern Tour event with training in 2014 © Keith Bedborough

Queen Mary hosted a one day Southern Tour event with training in 2014 © Keith Bedborough

Queen Mary hosted the one day Southern Tour event on the 18th May in wall to wall sunshine and a F1-3. With 3 races and no discards, a clean sheet was essential. 22 boats entered from as far afield as Swanage and Barnet Green, however it was the local boats that dominated with 14 entries – a record number.

Racing was held with the 200’s and 700’s on the smaller eastern side of the reservoir, and with a fickle south easterly breeze with many large holes made for interesting conditions in the first race. After much place changing and the PRO shortening the course, Pete and Liss Bennett from Datchet comfortably won the first closely followed by his brother Roger and Lesley Sarjantson from Silver Wing and Howie Farbrother and Dan Martin in hot pursuit taking third.

After a 40 degree wind shift to the south, the 2nd race got away well with the whole fleet enjoying the conditions so much that no one paid any attention whatsoever to the required distance and all sailed an extra lap (along with the 200 fleet!) After all was done, Andy Hatch and Dan Hawkins got the bullet with James Cutler and Andy Trim from Burghfield a close second with Howard and Dan third. Both Bennett brothers were far too keen on the heavily biased port line and ended up OCS.

The third race was dominated by Howie and Dan with locals Julia Hancock and Mark a worthy second with Roger and Lesley third.

Overall results gave the home club 4 of the top 5 places. Top spot to Howie and Dan, second to Andy and Dan and third to David Brown and Rebecca Witt, a clean sheet for QMSC!

Immediately prior to the event, the Saturday saw an excellent coaching day with Jim Downer giving the limited number of 10 boats some excellent boat set-up and coaching tips. Although the fleet did not get out on the water until the afternoon due to the glassy conditions, the time was not wasted with in-depth advice on boat fit out, set-up and tune. After lunch, the fleet took to the water with one to one coaching in the light conditions. The last hour of the day saw a great wrap with video playback highlighting the key learnings. A worthwhile day was had by all and a big thanks to Jim for sharing is significant 400 knowledge bank!

Overall Results: