Noble Marine RS800 National Championship at Weymouth & Portland Sailing Academy - Days 1 & 2
by Emma & Luke McEwen 30 Jul 2022 15:14 BST
RS800 Noble Marine National Championship at WPNSA - Day 1 © Phil Jackson / Digital Sailing
The sense of excitement at WPNSA for the 2022 RS Games was infectious for the RS800 sailors gathered there for their UK National Championships (much better than the infectiousness of the last two years). The music beating out of the RS Hub, the pink carpet, beanbags and 360 RS Feva sailors all added to the fun atmosphere.
Racing started at 9am... grab a free Danish pastry and coffee before the swarm of Rooster-clad kids descended on them.
Weather for the first day's racing was sunny with a perfect 12-18 knots. Any less would have been challenging out in Weymouth bay as the SE swell had built overnight to a good metre or more, making sailing upwind challenging and downwind exhilarating, with great surfing on the waves.
Even though the committee boat was pitching like a bucking bronco, Tom Rushbridge and his race team managed to set perfect courses and got the racing away after a short delay. Today the RS800s were on the outer loop to keep us clear of the RS700s, so had the added challenge of a long white-sail "death reach" after the windward mark to spice things up in the waves.
Despite getting rolled off the start line, Tom Morris and Guy Fillmore found their way to the front by the first windward mark and extended for the rest of the first race, while the rest of us made a variety of mistakes behind them.
Rob Gullan and Tom Partington hoisted early on the top reach, nearly missing the second mark with kite flapping and all of Tom's 6'4" of muscle hanging out to make it round the buoy. Ben Palmer and Dicken Maclean were flying along but a couple of swims cost them third place, taken skilfully by James Penty and Eddie Grayson.
A few people were caught out by not reading the sailing instructions, so missed the novel extra mark on the final reach to the finish.
Race two was almost identical, just a knot less pressure in the wind. The fleet were getting used to keeping the boat flat without bashing the crews through the waves, and really starting to revel in the fun conditions. Tom and Guy, and Rob and Tom again took first and second; this time Ben and Dicken kept the mast upright and capitalised on their great speed to take third.
Good chat was had ashore about just how enormous the waves had been (rising to 3-4 metres after two beers), licking a few wounds and finding out that even fast food takes quite a long time in Portland if you don't book ahead. But it was worth the wait for pizza on Chesil beach watching the sun set over a balmy Lyme Bay, serenaded by the dulcet tones of the ukulele and accordion band at The Cove.
Day two forecast was much lighter and as it turned out, too light for the Bay. The race team sensibly postponed three hours so the RS800s could race in Portland Harbour after the RS Aero Youth Worlds had finished for the day. The contrast from yesterday couldn't be much greater: dead flat water, 6-10 knots of wind from the SW and rash vest sailing in big sun.
Race three of the championship showed that the strong wind gurus aren't necessarily bad in light winds either: the overnight top three sailed in race bib order from the first mark to the finish, but hot on their heels were Martin Orton and Ian Brooks, followed by Fred Lord and Louise Gale, and Debbie Clark and Dan Goodman. Matt and Tom Jackson found the racing heavy going - heavier and heavier until they realised the bung was still in the dinghy park.
In race four there was plenty of action. The French team of Gilles Peeters and Chloe Le Roux took an early lead on the first beat and sailed intelligently in the small shifts to lead the race all the way to the finish. Tom and Guy had a bump at the first windward mark so did a turn - actually a full 720, as neither of them could remember with enough certainty that the sailing instructions said you only need to do a 360 - but still managed to pull through to second at the finish.
They also discovered that if there's an RS700 blanketing you, a polite hail of "bear away please" is enough to make an RS700 capsize, solving the problem.
Rob and Tom learned a new motto at the same mark: "if there's a big knot in the kite halyard, don't pull it as hard as you can four times". In the end Tom took the helm (not necessarily a bad thing), leaving Rob to unravel the knitting.
Luke and Emma McEwen held second until the last beat where a large lump of weed took them out of the running.
As it was now almost 7pm (the RS800 AGM apparently started at 6pm) the committee canned the third scheduled race of the day, sent us back ashore and posted a plan for four races in the bay tomorrow. The AGM was put off to Saturday morning and the fleet converged with healthy appetites to The Boat That Rocks for a pile of pub grub, plenty of beers and good chat.
Full results available here