Fox's Great Eastern Tour RS200 Open at Grafham Water Sailing Club

Robbie King and Jamie Webb lead the fleet at the Fox's Great Eastern Tour RS200 event at Grafham Water © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Peter and Adam Hudson accelerate downwind at the Fox's Great Eastern Tour event at Grafham Water © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Robbie King and Jamie Webb collect their prizes at the Fox's Great Eastern Tour RS200 Open held at Grafham Water SC © Paul Sanwell / OPP

Grafham Water SC hosted the inaugural event of the RS200 Great Eastern Tour on 10th April. The event, sponsored by Fox's Chandlery was held in wind that varied between 8 and 19 knots and swung randomly with 40o wind shifts.

This provided a challenge for the sailors and the race management team who in the cold conditions wanted to get racing. In the end, the windward mark was placed in middle of the two extremes of wind direction.

The shifts produced good tight racing with much place changing both upwind and downwind. At the gate boats split each side so it looked like the shifts were balancing out nicely. Four races were sailed with rapid turn round times, typically the length of time it took to remove the blue flag from the halyard and replace it with the orange one.

The starts were fun with boats trying to reset quickly for the latest shift on what were essentially square lines. Dave Jessop provided the most excitement when he hit the stern of the committee boat and tangled his mast in the committee boat rigging.

The results were very mixed, nobody dominated and positions 2,3,4 were all on 8 points. Home club sailor Robbie King crewed by Jamie Webb won the event. Special credit is due to Ian Chapman crewed by Ella Spain who spent the day near the back but were getting faster as the day went on and challenged the boats that had been ahead of them at the beginning. Vouchers were generously provided to the top 5 places by Fox's Chandlery

More photographs of the event are available at www.grafham.org/photos.html

Grafham Water SC is hosting 14 open meetings this year for many different classes of boat. Memberships are still available for the 2021 season. For more information about the club please visit their website www.grafham.org or call the club on 01480 810478. Follow the club on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pg/grafhamwatersc

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