West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour overall

West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour - Ugly Mugs © West Country Boat Repairs

After a fantastic Tour of seven very varied events, the West Country Boat Repairs RS200 Ugly Tour came down to the closest possible finish at Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club on October 23rd which drew an amazing fleet of 36 boats. Starting the final lap of the final race of the final event there were still 3 possible winners of the West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour.

Henry Hallam & Ashley Hill and Jon Teague & Naomi Pound were in top 5 in the race and both knew gain places on the final lap and they could overtake Tour leader Edd Whitehead. Henry & Ashley went round the final windward in 2nd place which would produce a 3 way tie for the Tour overall. Loose a place and they would slip to 3rd overall on the Tour. Of course this was not a problem for the St Mawes young guns who passed Chris Catt & Emma Norris on the final run to win the Chew Valley open by a point and with it the Ugly Tour by a point (Edd you can blame Chris Catt).

Chatting with Henry & Ashley afterwards we reflected that as 15 year olds their first RS200 open had been at a breezy Chew in 2018 when they had spent a fair amount of time swimming round their capsized boat. Non stop practice, learning quickly from supportive competitors on the Tour, going to as many events as a possible and a lot of talent has seen them steadily rise to the front.

West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour - Sponsor Pete Vincent with winners of the Tour Henry Hallam and Ashley Hill - photo © West Country Boat Repairs

The first event of the year at South Carney in a monsoon just after Covid restrictions were eased seems a long time ago now. Numbers on the Tour have really recovered well with 87 different boats competing with an average turnout of 21 boats per event. Qualifying means UGLY MUGS with the top 9 boats overall, the top 3 boats in both Silver and Bronze division winning the very sought after Ugly mugs, each mug has a unique face design.

Before the prize-giving I reflected on two very important features of this year's Ugly Tour.

• The very high numbers of new junior/youth sailors racing with a really good number sailing a boat together and producing really decent results.

• The other was the emergence of a very keen group of RS200 sailors in West Cornwall.

In recognition of this I presented Kyle Brown from Restronguet the richly deserved special merit prize for the person who has done the most to promote the Tour and RS200 sailing. Kyle is so keen and he does so much to get youngsters racing and getting them travelling to events. He also came up with the brilliant brain wave of turning the RS200 fleet racing as part of the Restronguet Asymmetric Open into the RS200 Cornish Nationals.

Just to emphasize these points, the overall winners in the Silver and Bronze Divisions were:

Bronze
1st Sarah and David Green (Llandegfedd SC)
2nd Rose Hallam, age 16, Benjy Marsden, age 15 (St Mawes SC)
3rd Freya Brown, age 15, Grace O Halloran, age 15 (Restronguet SC)

Silver
1st John Harvey Sarah Maddison (Thornbury SC)
2nd Kyle Brown (ancient) Madeleine Strugnell (not ancient) (Restronguet SC)
3rd Amy Boyles, age 18, Rosin O Halloran, age 19 (St Mawes SC)

Proving yet again if the 420 and 29er are not the right route for good junior sailors then the RS200 is their natural home!

The West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour will be back in 2022 even better. Look out for the tour date announcement in November and come and join in the fun.

2021 West Country Boat Repairs RS200 SW Ugly Tour Overall Results: