RS200 Northern Tour Open at Budworth Sailing Club

by Tony Wilcock 19 Oct 2021 17:19 BST 16 October 2021

A strong turnout from Budworth's fifteen strong home fleet together with visitors from Beaver, Burwain and Yorkshire Dales made for some exciting and very close racing in the last event of this year's Northern Tour.

The event comprised 2 pairs of back-to-back races in a light and tricky southerly breeze.

In Race 1 Alastair Coates and Bex Smith in "RipSaw" took an early lead which they held to the finish with Ollie Groves and Esther Parkhurst pulling up through the fleet, as they tuned into the local lightwind conditions, to finish 2nd.

In Race 2 Alastair and Bex escaped again with Jon Chapman and Wendy Martin in hot pursuit. Whilst they got away and had their own personal contest, which I'm sure was very enjoyable, for the rest of the fleet in was mega snakes and ladders with significant and unpredictable wind shifts both upwind and downwind really testing one's resolve and patience.

In Race 3 the PRO unfurled the "U" flag as the preparatory signal which resulted in a couple of boats, including Alastair and Bex, who actually finished 1st on the water, achieving an OCS! Jon and Wendy took the race win followed by Tony Taylor and Debbie Sutcliffe.

So, Race 4 was nicely set up for a head-to-head between Alastair and Bex and Jon and Wendy and that's how it played out from the gun. After a cautious start from Alastair (newly acquired knowledge on the "U" flag) Jon and Wendy took an early lead only to be eventually caught by Alastair and Bex. Although Jon and Wendy were able to regain the lead and round the penultimate mark in the lead they were overhauled by the mighty "RipSaw", cutting a fine line, on the final beat to the finish.

Congratulations to Alastair and Bex, Jon and Wendy 2nd and Ollie and Esther 3rd.

Overall Results:

Pos	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	Pts
1st	296	Alistair Coates	Bex Smith	Budworth SC	1	1	(OCS)	1	3
2nd	1314	Jon Chapman	Wendy Martin	Budworth SC	‑4	2	1	2	5
3rd	1700	Ollie Groves	Esther Parkhurst	Beaver SC	2	‑5	3	3	8
4th	1137	Tony Taylor	Debbie Sutcliffe	Budworth SC	‑8	4	2	7	13
5th	1606	Martin Joesbury	Sian Joesbury	Budworth SC	5	3	‑7	5	13
6th	1419	Russell Page	Vicky Page	Budworth SC	‑9	6	5	4	15
7th	1068	Martin Smith	Barbara Smith	Yorkshire Dales SC	‑12	7	9	6	22
8th	1003	Innes Armstrong	Justine Davenport	Burwain SC	‑10	8	8	8	24
9th	1644	Tony Wilcock	Mhairi Gass	Budworth SC	6	‑12	10	9	25
10th	978	Alex Cleaver	Olivia Smith	Budworth SC	‑11	11	4	11	26
11th	847	Chris Smallwood	Marie Smallwood	Budworth SC	7	9	‑11	10	26
12th	1560	Jon Ward	Heather Ward	Budworth SC	‑13	10	6	12	28
13th	990	Luke Shaw	Marie Shaw	Budworth SC	3	(DNF)	DNC	DNC	33
14th	1435	Hugh Smallman	Dianne Owen	Budworth SC	14	13	(OCS)	13	40