PA Consulting RS Feva Nationals at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy - Day 1
by Jon Partridge 27 May 2018 09:59 BST
26-29 May 2018
RS Feva Nationals at the WPNSA day 1 © Jon Partridge
The RS Feva Nationals kicked off on an unexpectedly sunny afternoon, despite the appalling forecast!
The 107 teams were briefed by PRO Ian Bullock who made it clear to all that he fully expected to get all racing away promptly so as to avoid the 40 mph winds forecast for the late afternoon. The keen competitors cleared the boat park and hit the race course. As expected the racing got underway at 1300 on the dot.
The winds stayed fairly light with some unexpected gusts mixed in for good measure allowing both light and heavyweight teams to take advantage and monopolise when the conditions suited their pairing. Stand out performance of the day was from Netherlands team brothers Luuk de Wijn and Sjoerd de Wijn with 2, 1, 1 putting them in 1st over all at the end of the day.
Norwich School's 2016 RS Feva World Champion helm William Pank with schoolmate crew Sebastian Gotto are lying in 2nd and Robbie McDonald and Teddy Ferguson from HISC and Windermere School are in 3rd. Sophie Dennis and Olivia Bracey-Davis have had a great day finishing the day in 7th making them top girls with best result of 2nd in race 3. The Mum and Daughter team read everything right in race 3 to storm around the course leading from beginning to end and finishing the day with a bullet.
So at the end of the day it is consistency is key and the top 10 is looking tight.
Sunday's forecast looks light so lets see how the final day of qualifying goes, when the day is done teams will be split into Gold and Silver.
Results can be found here.