RS400 Rope4Boats Northern Tour finale at Notts County Sailing Club

by James Logan 24 Sep 2018 15:42 BST 22-23 September 2018

The RS400 Rope4Boats Northern Series had its final event at Notts County's RS400 Rooster Open event over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd September. Storm Ali and friends had made the forecast frightening at times. Thankfully, the extreme winds predicted didn't appear. In their place Saturday saw much calmer conditions, the first cold spell for some time and, not only that, it rained!

This didn't stop the 31 boat entry, some travelling from afar, launching on time to commence a day of tense, tactical sailing. The first race was held in a light breeze. The Race Officer, Nadina Lincoln, set a trapezoid course to suit the lake. After an inevitable general recall the fleet set off and had a good hour long race before lunch. The course, well briefed beforehand, was still a mystery to most even as they launched, but the beat, reach to a leeward windward leg before reaching back to the gate soon made sense with only one (who shall remain nameless) managing to miss a mark in the first race.

After lunch it was two back-to-back races in a fading wind, and rain. With no one dominating in the fickle wind the scores were all very close for the top positions. The competitors were happy to get under hot showers and have a cup of tea and a doughnut before moving seamlessly onto the gin, the odd pint or two and Pauline's roast dinner followed by a rules quiz run by Nadina. High scores in the quiz were not apparent, even though the posed situations were all typical for RS asymmetric racing and those at the top of the sailing leader board maintaining their low scoring runs! A late bar, a Chinese game – thanks Kathryn – and quite a lot of dodgy shots – made for a good social, all in all.

Sunday's forecast was for a shift round to the North and an increasing breeze. The early start saw light winds for the first race, but at least the sun appeared taking the chill off the day. The breeze did fill in as predicted and two final, longer, races were held around the RO's preferred trapezoid course, which we had all managed to master by now, with tight racing across the whole fleet. Very little, points wise, separated the top 4 but in the end Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman held on, even having to do penalty turns after the last gybe mark, for a win in the last race and overall victory.

The smooth operation put on by the race team meant that the scheduled three races for the day were completed in time for everyone to get ashore to enjoy a late lunch before the Rooster sponsored prize giving, Chris and Matt taking home the Notts County RS400 Open trophy for a second successive year. Full results can be seen below.

So, the final event of the Rope4Boats Northern Tour. A really well supported series that has seen 85 boats take part over seven events hosted across the region. Dave Exley presented a set of prizes to the top 5 boats in the series – the full results will be available to see on the RS400 Class Association website. Matt Velamail and Dave Exley won Rope4Boats vouchers in the fleet raffle. Conveniently, Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman were the final overall winners – that result only due to them winning the Notts County event – earning them some very nice Rope4Boats tapered jib sheets and also meaning they could do a joint acceptance speech to thank all the clubs involved, the series sponsors, Rope4Boats, and the Notts County team for hosting the concluding event.

We all look forward to another competitive and well supported 2019 Rope4Boats RS400 Northern Tour.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Pts
1st	1283	Chris Pickles	Matt Sharman	Delph	3	1	‑5	3	4	1	12
2nd	1396	Richard Catchpole	Gary Coop	LLSC	1	2	3	6	‑7	2	14
3rd	1202	Sam Knight	John Knight	Bartley SC	2	‑10	2	2	2	6	14
4th	1460	David Exley	Mark Lunn	LLSC	(RET)	4	1	4	1	5	15
5th	1407	Hamish Glodhill	Simon Dowse	WRSC	‑7	5	4	1	6	7	23
6th	1377	Sean Cleary	Annaliese Nixon	Oxford SC/Tauranga	9	3	‑12	7	3	3	25
7th	1189	Steve Restall	Chris Stubbs	Downs	6	6	9	5	‑15	8	34
8th	866	Michael Sims	Robert Stevenson	Carsington	(BFD)	9	6	13	5	9	42
9th	1150	Matt Velamail	Tim Brownell	Ulley	13	(BFD)	8	10	10	10	51
10th	1465	Ben Williamson	Charlie Ticehurst	Welton SC	‑18	11	16	8	13	4	52
11th	1363	Ross Ryan	Oliver Ryan‑Moore	NCSC	8	12	‑15	12	11	12	55
12th	1262	Jon Willars	Rich Brameld	Welton	5	14	13	14	‑18	11	57
13th	1461	Caroline Exley	Andy Dawson	LLSC	(BFD)	7	14	18	8	14	61
14th	1414	C Whitehouse	Tony Cliff	Bartley	4	8	18	15	17	(DNS)	62
15th	932	Jonathan Lye	Rebecca Ogden	NCSC	10	16	‑21	9	14	15	64
16th	1345	John Hobson	Lindsay Ogden	NSCS	15	13	10	17	12	(DNF)	67
17th	1122	Matt Potter	Simon Hibbert	NCSC	11	20	11	16	(DNC)	17	75
18th	770	Thomas Broatch	Ancel Davison	Port Dinorwic SC	12	‑26	17	21	16	13	79
19th	1336	John Parr	Kim Parnham	NCSC	17	18	7	19	21	‑24	82
20th	971	Tom Haslam	Karen Haslam	NCSC	(BFD)	15	23	22	9	19	88
21st	1029	John Cunningham	Nicky Cokayne	Carsington SC	21	17	26	11	19	(DNF)	94
22nd	950	Alan Elkington	Goizeder Aspe‑Juaristi	NSCS	19	19	(DNF)	25	20	18	101
23rd	1354	Ken Twemlow	Kathryn Hinsliff‑Smith	NCSC	14	‑25	20	23	24	22	103
24th	1325	James Logan	Philippa Logan	NCSC	16	23	‑25	24	25	21	109
25th	1009	Tim Harrison	Chloe Williams	NCSC	22	‑28	22	20	22	23	109
26th	1272	Andy Wilcox	Hannah Wilcox	Grafham WSC	20	‑29	19	26	27	20	112
27th	1342	Max Tosetti	Jules Thorne	QM	23	24	‑27	27	26	16	116
28th	1203	Johnny Umebear	Abi Morgan	West Riding SC	25	27	24	30	23	(DNF)	129
29th	1121	Mark Ehlers	Asher Ehlers	NCSS	24	21	28	29	28	(DNF)	130
30th	1048	Martin Hart	Moira Hart	NCSC	27	22	30	28	29	(DNF)	136
31st	1346	Geoff Cottam	Jo Cottam	NCSC	26	30	29	(DNC)	DNC	DNC	149