RS200s at the Waldringfield Easter Egg

Despite the forecast looking bleak for the Easter weekend, ten boats contested the Waldringfield RS200 Easter Egg on Sunday & Monday, - the first stop on the Fox's Chandlery Great Eastern Tour. Entries were largely drawn from Waldringfield's growing fleet but also included David & Emily Vialls visiting from Littleton SC.

Racing kicked off on Sunday with a light breeze. Race officer Mike Pert set a long course that would take in some of the more tricky parts of the river with a long run against the incoming tide. Running past the "island" after the first mark the fleet bunched up, but Stephen Videlo & Maddie Harris broke clear followed by Ian & Alyson Videlo, with Andrew Nunn & Nicole Mayhew also shaking off the crowd to finish in third.

For the second race, the race officer set a straightforward windward-leeward course but this turned out to be no less challenging. MJ Gifford & Robbie Stewart started well and led at the first mark from Stephen & Maddie and Geoff Mayhew & Sarah Northey. Half of the fleet continued to head for the western bank of the river whilst the other half chose the other side. MJ & Robbie chose correctly and built a commanding lead from Geoff & Sarah and Mark & Becky Hodge. In the subsequent laps Ian & Alyson managed to haul themselves back into second place with Stephen & Maddie just catching Mark & Becky before the finish.

Over lunch the new panini machine proved very popular but the wind faded away as predicted, leaving the race officer with little choice but to abandon sailing for the rest of the day.

As it turned out, the non-stop rain forecast for Monday would fizzle out once sailing got underway and with a moderate breeze, the day had a very different feel.

Races 3 and 4 were started from the club's fixed starting line. Stephen & Maddie led from Ian & Alyson at the first mark of Race 3 but then decided to sacrifice their lead by setting the spinnaker on the close reach across the river. However, they soon managed to recover on the run back to the leeward mark. MJ & Robbie showed impressive downwind speed to close right up without quite managing to overtake before the finish.

By Race 4, the senior Stewarts (Tom & Charlotte) seemed to have got the hang of the RS200 and led at the first mark although Stephen & Maddie eventually managed to find their way past. Meanwhile, the senior Videlos and senior Stewarts had a close race all the way to the finish with Ian & Alyson just managing to find better wind on the run to take second.

After lunch, the final race coincided with the high tide and we were back to a committee boat start with a long windward leeward course constrained by the club fixed line on the beat. At the first mark there was little to separate Stephen & Maddie and MJ & Robbie and these two boats led the way through to the finish.

Overall Stephen & Maddie were the clear winners with Ian & Alyson just taking second from MJ & Robbie. A big thank you must go to everyone at Waldringfield who put time into organising and supporting the event, both on the water and ashore.

Overall Results: