Noble Marine Allen RS300 National Championships at Brixham Yacht Club - Day 2

Gold Fleet

If the forecast was to believed, day two of the Noble Marine Allen RS300 Nationals was going to be attritional with winds of 20 knots plus. In the end, to the relief of the lighter sailors, the beefy wind never materialised, remaining in the mid teens for the most part.

Overnight leader, Dave Acres, started race 4 by carrying on in the same vein as the previous day, leading the fleet around the first two laps of the trapezoid course. However, he was unable to pull clear of a gaggle of chasers including Harry McVicar, Sam Davy and others and when Steve Bolland and Martin Harrison hit the left on the final beat all hell let loose. With these two picking a lovely lay line, others over stood and at the finish it was Bolland, Pete Mackin and Acres. Bolland crossed the line to silence, however, as did Paul Watson who was also in the leading gaggle, promoting everyone one else up and leaving Harrison in third.

Mercifully, there were less shenanigans in race 5, although there was a coming together between Watson and Acres at the first mark. This allowed Bolland to escape and he made no mistake in this one after managing to remain on the correct side of the start line. 2nd was Acres, followed by McVicar and Watson.

After a slight delay as the course was reset, race 6 got under way in the lightest breeze of the day, the knots dropping below the teens at times. Watson led at the first but was unable to hold of that 'bl**dy lightweight' Bolland downwind, Bolland going on to win from Watson and Harrison.

With Acres having one of those races and putting in a discard, Bolland now leads narrowly from Acres and Watson heading into a potentially four-race day with lighter winds forecast.

Silver Fleet

Here's the view from the back! With a breezy forecast three races to look forward to we left the slipway in and orderly manner and almost everyone made it out of the harbour without capsizing!

Race 1 was going well till Mr Bolland failed to gybe round the leeward mark pushing Mr Sallis wide who bumped into the boat coming on on port... Which was unfortunately me. The turns dropped me from the front of silver fleet to the back, which gave me a great opportunity to see how many place I could recover.

Race 2. More wind, port biased line, port flyer.... Failed. Overtaken by a very rapid Paul Watson, so I thought I'd try and copy him, which was good. Spent the rest of the race practising the 'low n fast' mode. Had a great battle with Chris Brook, Mark Newton, Rich Packer and me finishing with 10 seconds of each other. The mid fleet could be quite competitive.

Race 3 - more wind. More capsizing I think there were about 8 boats upside as a squall came through on the first run. Another opportunity to catch up. Things of interest today: Sam Davy collapsed over Mark 4, Chris Brook having filled that little hole in the mast foot and wondering why the mast filled with water - he may be very fast now that's fixed!

After the Rooster Sailing prize-giving and a bangers and mash supper, both gold and silver fleets enjoyed Brixham's unique Pig Racing night, sadly no amount of sailing skills made them a match for the race officer's son, who seemed to have the inside tips for every race!