RS Vareos at the Medway Regatta 2026

RS Vareos at the Medway Regatta 2026 © Paul North

As the heatwave began to abate on Saturday 27th June, 6 visiting RS Vareos joined 6 locals at Wilsonian Sailing Club for Rooster Tour 2026 event number 3, The Medway Regatta.

With a schedule of four 2-hour races over the weekend, we looked forward to a very different kind of racing to our usual windward leeward courses, especially as some of the courses were close to 10 miles in distance. We were given our own start (2nd of 5) with not all fleets sailing the same course.

Saturday dawned with clear skies and a light wind forecast, but as the morning drew on this failed to materialise in any meaningful way. At around noon, the race officer abandoned race 1 but announced his intention to start race 2 at the scheduled time of 1.30. We ate a great lunch from the amazing army of volunteers in the club house before taking to the water right on time.

RS Vareos at the Medway Regatta 2026 - photo © Paul North

With a steady(ish) wind from the northeast and the tide beginning to fall we set off on Course Number 14 which involved a route down the river (estuary) to buoy 23 then a loop back to 30, upwind again to 25 then back home (7.5 miles in total). Local sailor Stuart Bailey, fresh from an excellent second place at last month's Nationals, took a good lead from a start at the port end. Somehow, I also managed a good start in the "interesting" tide and followed close behind him for about the first 15-20 minutes, pulling out a decent lead over the rest of the fleet.

However, my navigation skills not being what they might be, I got lost in understanding where we were and passed one of the course marks on the wrong side. After an agonisingly slow return to the buoy against the tide, I rejoined the rest of the fleet in pursuit of Stuart who was disappearing into the distance. After about 90 minutes or so we were gybing back and forth at the edges trying to avoid the tide and get to the finish when the wind died to almost nothing and we ended up mostly together floating around. Luke Fisher and Chris Abbott were the ones to notice the wind filling behind on the right-hand side and were able to jump well up, passing poor Stuart who had become completely becalmed over on the left. Suddenly with some wind behind, there was a dash (well kind of) to the line. After 1 hour 55 minutes of racing, Luke crossed the line just 9 seconds ahead of Chris. Stuart, 45 seconds behind held off John Carron by just 9 seconds with me only 25 seconds behind him.

Thankfully, it's only a matter of a few yards from the finish to your trolley and the helpful folk pulling you up the shingle and back into the boat yard. Once packed away we were treated to an excellent dinner (one of the best chicken pies many of us have ever eaten), a few beers and entertainment from "Swinging the Lead", a great local band singing sea shanties.

Sunday arrived, along with the strong 16 gusting 28 forecast from the southwest prompting a couple of the fleet to decide that was a bit too strong. For Race 3 we were sailing Course Number13, a route down to buoy 18 and back with a dog-leg across the river on the outward and return journey, a mere 8.7 miles. Owen Bolding decided to try the storm sail, given what obviously would be a long beat back. With the start being pretty much downwind, and the tide on the last of the flood it was tricky to gauge an approach to the line. Once again Stuart got away well, I was close behind and soon decided to chance the kite. This proved a bad idea as the first strong gust took me straight towards a row of moored yachts and quick, but dry, capsize. Thankfully, I got the kite in quickly and got going as John passed by, giving me a great view of him promptly repeating my faux pas.

As we moved out into the more open water, any thought of hoisting the spinnaker soon disappeared as simply staying upright through the swell and very strong gusts took every ounce of concentration (plus a strong grip of the side deck. Even sat on the very rear corner of the boat it was constantly nose-diving through the bottom of the waves, bringing a tidal wave through the middle of the hull! I could see each boat in front of me performing long safety tacks as gybing clearly was going to be extremely challenging, As we headed towards buoy 23, I saw Luke heading away from the course, clearly with some significant issue, it looked like his race was done. At the first dogleg across the river, and the wind, Chris in front of me had a big capsize with the boat turtling very quickly, leaving me now in second with Stuart well ahead and John not far behind. After a pretty scary turn upwind at buoy 18, we began the LONG beat back up the river, thankful for the small amount of tide helping us along.

With some significant waves, which us pond sailors are not used to, it was a tough fight to keep the boat moving and John's superior upwind technique soon saw him go past. For a long time, we were never far apart and then suddenly from behind I saw Owen, ploughing along with the boat flat, and the storm sail doing its job, with Luke just in front. It turned out that on the downwind leg, the to corner of his dagger board had broken off allowing it to fall through the slot and be dragged along under the hull by its retaining shock cord. Luke had managed to get it back into position, find some way of tying it up and rejoin the race. As we approached the home straight, Luke passed me, and Owen had got very close before the wind died a little allowing me to finally get the boat flat(ish) and pull away. We only saw Stuart in the distance for most or the upwind leg and he took first by 3 half minutes from John, ahead of Luke with me in 4th. Owen took 5th, about a minute behind, then there was almost another half hour before the only other two finishers, Kacper Gunja and Brian Culver. We were ready for our lunch!

RS Vareos at the Medway Regatta 2026 - photo © Paul North

As so on to Race 4. As the wind seemed to have abated just a little, and the tide was now ebbing, we were expecting a rather shorter course. There were some, shall we say "exclamations of surprise", when the race officer posted our course as Number 24, pretty much down to the same part of the river without the doglegs and 8.4 miles. The downwind AND down tide start was a little challenging, then we were off again.

Once we rounded the first mark, several boats hoisted their kites and it was probably along here that John's watch recorded 12.8 kts. Chris and I kept ours in the chute but as we got further down the river and things seem to have settled a bit I decided to pull mine up. I had just got past Chris when a big gust literally threw me in. After a brief swim back to the boat, it took several attempts and a LOT of time before I was finally back on board and following the distant fleet. Up at the front, Luke, Stuart, John and Owen were hotly contesting the first 4 places, with Chris wisely playing it safe a little behind. As I passed them going in the other direction, I was still a good 500m from the downwind mark, so at least 1km behind and not looking forward to the up tide beat to come. As I rounded the mark, I saw another Vareo capsized further downstream and Brian Culver was always in view as we wearily struggled back.

Up at the front John took the lead for a little before Luke and Stuart passed him. Luke covered Stuart's tacks for some distance until going aground trying to stay away from the strong current. This allowed Stuart to pass and return the covering favour. On the final reach to the line, Luke bore away on a big gust and managed to carry it past Stuart to win by 15 seconds. John was third with Owen fourth and Chris 5th, just pipping James Wilkinson to the line. After an exhausting 2+ hours I gratefully crossed the line in 7th with Brian also battling right to the end at 2hrs 31, well done.

A massive thank you to everyone at Wilsonian who did a fantastic job and were so friendly and welcoming to us visitors. Also of course, thanks to our tour sponsors Rooster, and to MTS Cleansing Services and Pirates Cave Chandlery, the regatta sponsors.

Overall Results: