RS Sailing RS200 Northern Tour Round 3 at Staunton Harold Sailing Club

The third event of the RS Sailing sponsored RS200 Northern Tour took place at Staunton Harold SC on Saturday, 13th May with 11 visitors from as far away as Exmouth joining 7 boats from the home club.

After several years of frustrating winds, Staunton Harold came good with the wind predominantly blowing the length of the reservoir with a nice F3 southerly albeit with some holes in it and occasionally bigger gusts.

In the first race Ollie Groves & Esther Parkhurst took an early lead and sailed away from the fleet. Martin & Sian Joesbury, Pete Gray & Rachel Rhodes and Jon & Heather Ward all held second place at various stages of the race, before eventually finishing in that order.

The second race was again dominated from start to finish by Ollie & Esther. Pete & Rachel finished second and Sam & Tim Waller finished third in a processional race for the first three. Pete Goodyear and Ali Lucas took advantage of a poor last mark rounding by Richard Pepperdine & Amy Forbes to take fourth place.

With Ollie & Esther having done a horizon job on the fleet in the first two races going into the lunch break, who would have bet against them walking away with the event?

Race 3 proved a turning point with Pete & Rachel taking advantage of a massive wind shift at the start to sail into what looked like an unassailable lead, only to watch Ollie & Esther whittle it down and take the lead on the second lap. This looked like game over, however Pete & Rachel staged an impressive comeback to retake the lead on the final lap. Ollie & Esther finished second with Sam & Tim steadily pulling through to take third from Luke Shaw and Jim Driver.

The showdown between Pete & Rachel and Ollie & Esther in Race 4 never materialised. The wind by this stage had swung further to the West and dropped to a Force 1-2.

The Wards took an early lead up the first beat only to be overhauled by Pete & Rachel approaching the windward mark, who then sailed away from the fleet on the downwind legs never to be challenged again. The Wards looked safe in second but saw much of their lead over the fleet disappear approaching the windward mark on the second lap. With the wind slowly filling in from behind there was much place changing on the downwind legs. In the end, Andrew Gill & Ciara Perry took advantage of the new wind on the final downwind to pull through to second with the Wards having to settle for third with Louise McKeand & Cathy Parington in fourth.

This left both Pete & Rachel and Ollie & Esther equal on 4 points. With both boats having two wins and a second to count, the event was settled by the result of the last race with Pete & Rachel taking the event win from Ollie & Esther. Sam & Tim Waller were the most consistent of the rest and took a well-deserved 3rd place overall.

The winners of the Rope4Boats vouchers were Andrew Gill and Nigel Pepperdine.

Overall Results: