Trident UK RS400 Northern Tour 2026 - Overall

Trident UK RS400 Northern Tour 2026 at Notts County Sailing Club © David Eberlin

The Trident UK RS400 Northern Tour went right down to the wire with five teams in contention as they went into the last event at Notts County Sailing Club. In fact, the series was not settled until the last race of that event.

Dave Exley and Dee Osmond (Leigh and Lowton SC) squeaked across the finishing line just one second ahead of Hamish Gledhill and Richard Brown (West Riding SC), but whilst tied on points with team Exley/Osmond, Hamish and Richard won the event on the tie breaker.

Trident UK RS400 Northern Tour 2026 at GNAC - photo © Artur Dembinski

This result meant Dave and Dee were tied on points with Hamish and Richard, who was stepping in for Hamish's regular crew Ross Southwell, on the overall Northern Tour. Once again, the tie break favoured Hamish and Ross/Richard giving them the overall Trident UK Northern Tour Title ahead of Dave and Dee.

Behind them, the tie break method had to be employed again to split Richard and Heather Marsh (Hollingworth Lake SC) and Alastair Rimmer and Ollie Brown (Bassenthwaite SC) with Richard and Heather securing third place ahead of Alastair and Ollie. John Reekie with son James (Bassenthwaite SC) were fifth overall ahead of Keith Escritt and Harry Fox (Yorkshire Dales SC) in sixth.

Once again, the Trident UK Northern Tour presented a whole range of conditions throughout the year from the Baltic blast at Leigh and Lowton at the start of the year to the calm conditions at Carsington. There was the usual mixed bag of conditions during the Lord Birkett Trophy at Ullswater Yacht Club, and the mayhem and chaos of Bassenthwaite SC as part of GNAC. The final event of the year at Notts County threw up some of the best conditions in their wonderfully blue water. The constant throughout the year was the friendly and welcoming atmosphere at all events with a chance to catch up with old friends and new over a beer or two in the evening.

Lord Birkett Trophy - photo © Paul Hargreaves

The number of events on the Northern Tour was reduced to five events this year, in an attempt to de-congest the overall RS400 calendar and to improve the number of entries at events. The turnouts have improved this year with an average of 17 boats per event. The cold and extremely windy conditions probably kept some boats away from the opening event at Leigh and Lowton otherwise that average may have been higher.

53 boats competed on the tour coming from 18 different clubs, with Notts County having the largest contingent with 10 boats, followed by Leigh and Lowton and Bassenthwaite Sailing Clubs with 6 boats each. Without naming names, the ages of people taking part spanned over 60 years, and a mix of male/female and large and small the Northern Tour caters for all sailors.

The calendar for next year is coming together and should be published in the next few weeks. After listening to feedback, we are looking to add a couple more events to the Tour next year so keep an eye on the RS400 Class Association's website events page for full details of that.

Trident UK RS400 Northern Tour 2026 at Carsington - photo © Helen Penty

The RS400 committee is keen to listen to views on how to encourage more people into the fleet and attending events, so if you have any thoughts or ideas, please let us know or post your thoughts on the RS400 Northern Tour or RS400 Class Association Facebook pages.

Finally, we thank Trident UK for their ongoing support for the Northern Tour and their generosity in providing spot prizes in the form of Tokens and beanie hats for each event, as well as overall prizes for the Northern Tour.

We look forward to seeing you on the water in 2027.

Overall Results: