Magic Marine RS300 Winter Championship at Hykeham Sailing Club

Magic Marine RS300 Winter Championship © Kay Peters

Magic Marine RS300 Winter Championship © Kay Peters

You know how in 'Rocky', Stallone prepares for a fight by punching slabs of raw beef? Well, last weekend was as cold as that meat locker he was in. I guess we should have expected that, heading east with a full-on north-easterly blowing straight in from Scandinavia. However, despite the return to artic-like conditions it was fantastic to see 21 competitors signed up for the Magic Marine RS300 Winter Champs at Hykeham SC over the weekend of 14/15 March. The furthest-travelled award would normally have gone to those coming from Kent or Somerset but they were well and truly trumped on this occasion by Mark Taylor and Alistair McLaughlin making the trip all the way from Prestwick. Fair play.

Hykeham, with a growing fleet of RS300s there, provided an impeccable welcome and this, coupled with the obvious enthusiasm within the class at the moment, provided the perfect back-drop to a great weekend of racing.

The breeze, fortuitously blowing pretty much down the length of the lake, allowed two good beats, a handful of reaches and a long run back down to the start area that transpired to keep the racing tight and provided quite a few 'moments'. The limited width of the lake kept everyone together, especially on the first beat of each race with the whole fleet seemingly arriving together at the windward mark, the excitement exacerbated by the starboard mark rounding.

The force 4 with some dramatic gusts on Saturday caught out quite a few, the ensuing turmoil being of Greek economic proportions at times (nearly). Not least amongst these were the co-Chairmen both going in to windward in pretty much the same place in race 1 (particularly slippery bit of water, that). Steve Sallis got hit by a big gust while leading race 2. See the video here (facebook).

That gust came at him in cubic metre lumps and it gave those of us following him a great view of his stern lifting out of the water as the bow went in. We shared your pain, Steve, we really did. Also failing to cover himself in glory, having taken over the lead following Sallis' mishap, was Matt Jenkins who not so much ran aground in the shallows as dredged a substantial section of the lake-bed. We shared his pain too.

By Saturday evening the whole fleet was in a state of distress following three full-on races. The soup and pork rolls prepared by the club after racing provided just enough energy for us to get to our feet and study the overnight results which revealed that consistency was key. Duncan Jenkins from Aldenham showed us that getting in three decent results rather than mucking about falling in/running aground/knocking yourself out (Jimmy Ruddiman) was the way forward. A couple of beers at the club and then a short walk to the pub (table for 26) and more fuel intake rounded off a memorable evening.

Mercifully the wind, although in the same direction, had dropped a little overnight allowing our aching limbs a bit of respite. This didn't stop more muppetry though. Luke Pepper, while on his way to victory in race 5 managed to lose his GoPro off his boom. Apparently such mishaps are Normal For Luke. Luckily Steve Bolland, following behind, had only to make a slight deviation to pick it up in one swoop and then proceeded to amuse himself by taking selfies as the race progressed. The additional weight was the main problem though. I would definitely have won that race without the GoPro on board.

There were no doubt many more incidents but the racing remained so close throughout, gaining or losing three or four places upwind or down was as easy as falling off a 300, that registering anything other than what was happening in your immediate vicinity was nigh on impossible.

I suppose you want to know the results? Have a look below if you're really that interested. Of much more importance is that we all had a great time – top racing, top evening out on Saturday, new friendships made and older ones renewed. Roll on the Sprints at Rutland on 11/12 April.

Overall Results: