RS700 Volvo Noble Marine National Championship - Day 1
by Rob Higgins 13 Sep 11:47 BST
12-15 September 2020
RS700 Volvo Noble Marine National Championship - Day 1 © Clare Sargent
Day one of the rescheduled RS700 nationals and the fleet were welcomed with a warm September sun at WPNSA. After plenty of boat prep and catching up the fleet launched into a 10-11 knot breeze.
Race one
The fleet got away at the first time of asking with the majority of the fleet heading out to the left hand side of the course. Pete Purkiss, with some blistering upwind speed, soon headed the fleet with Theo Galyer hot on his tails.
Pete and Theo rounded the windward mark together shortly followed by a compact group of Rob Higgins, Liam Willis, Matt Carter and Jerry Wales. Pete now showed some great downwind speed to pull away from Theo. He continued to pulled away from the fleet leaving Theo to look over his shoulder at the constant position changing from the chasing pack. This carried on for the next lap with Pete leading, Theo holding onto second and the next four chopping and changing places.
The final lap saw Pete round the windward mark with a comfortable lead, followed in second by Theo, with Rob close behind. Pete had decided it wasn't important to read the sailing instructions and rounded the leeward gate to head off for another lap. Theo and Rob, with some on course conformation about the number of laps, decided to blast down to the finish handing Theo the win. Rob was a close second with Matt Carter pipping a now gybing Pete to the finish line.
Race two
The wind swung around and built to 14 knots leading to a short delay. The start was a similar story with the fleet wanting to head left. Theo and Liam made good starts at the committee boat end and held an early advantage.
Pete, Jerry and Rob all made solid starts further down the line. Theo nailed the port lay line to just tack inside Jerry who had played the shifts well up the first beat. These two were followed by Rob, Liam and Pete. Theo gybed off early with Jerry, Rob and Liam heading off to the right.
At the leeward gate Theo, Jerry and Rob came together leading to find Theo calling a bold but legal late shout for room involving a super late gybe drop. This sent Jerry wide leaving the door open for Rob to round up inside.
Theo continued to hold the advantage. Rob had now moved into second and Jerry was third. Theo took a comfortable win, Rob second, Jerry third and Pete fourth. So Theo has taken two bullets to start a solid defence to his national champion's crown.
After sailing the class held a socially distanced raffle. The lucky winner of the RS700 Spinnaker generously donated by Hyde Sails was Andrew Wright from Queen Mary SC. Matt Conner was the winner of a smart kit bag kindly donated by Noble Marine.