RS 100 Sprint Championships overall

by Mark Harrison on 13 Apr 2015 The RS 100 Sprint Championships were again held at Rutland Sailing Club, with a forecast of fresh winds for the six races on Saturday 10th and much more on Sunday. This forecast was enough to produce some excellent excuses not to sail, including 'the car had a flat tyre', 'I am to old to enjoy swimming' and the best one made after rigging the boat and getting changed 'I left my rudder at home'.

So six out of the ten 100s entered set of to the start line in F5 gusting six and race one got underway Giles Chipperfield capsizing on his first tack off the line ('The booms much lower than the D-one'). The big unit of Huw Powell powered away to lead from start to finish with Mark Harrison overtaking Greg Booth just yards from the finish line followed by David Smart and Clive Eplett with Giles not finishing after another prolonged capsize.

In the second Huw once again set off like a rocket and led round the course but missed out the last bouy handing the race to Mark with Greg having his only swim of the day which allowed the upright Giles to take second. Clive was struggling with the conditions and went ashore quoting from his book, 'it has taken man five million years of evolution to live on land rather than the sea and I am not going to reverse this process'.

Mark continued to ride his luck by leading race three from start to finish with Greg taking second from Huw who recovered from a rubbish first beat to finish third followed by Giles and David.

On the first beat of race four a big left shift meant that Huw and Giles reached into the first mark rounding well ahead of the others, leaving Huw to go on to win, but Mark managed to reel Giles in upwind 'because of, to quote from Giles ' his superior pie eating abilities'. David at this point excuses himself from the fun citing a broken up main sheet block, but Giles, later in the pub, was sure the real reason for Davids retirement was that he had beaten David in the two previous races.

Race five saw Huw using his hiking technique 'sit on the side and allow mass to do the work for you' storm off to an unassailable lead with Greg profiting from Marks capsize (which saw, when his boat was on its side the spinnaker fill and lift the bow up until the hull was vertical before being dropped back again) to finish second followed by Gilles and a rather bemused Mark

In the 'thank God its the last race' Marks boat again took off as he led round the first two marks, but Huw managed to get past at the bottom of the first run, but again Huws lack of upwind boat speed (his new slot gasket was hanging off) allowed Mark to pass for a win with Greg finishing just in front of Giles.

The forecast for Sunday was looking grim, but those who looked out at 8am on Sunday were surprised to see a gentle force three but an hour later this had risen to F5 and at 10am with a steady F6 gusting seven and a forecast of more to come the RO abandoned racing much to the relief of the aching sailors. This left Mark beating Huw, as there are no discards, with Greg third and Giles wondering why he broke his rule of only sailing in warm water.

A big thank you to the race and rescue crews at Rutland SC who once again supplied great racing.

The next event is Posh in four weeks time and for those like Giles who like a warmer weather there is Carnac at the end of May.

Final results

RS100 Fleet

Sailed: 6, Discards: 0, To count: 6, Entries: 7, Scoring system: Appendix A

Rank	Fleet	Sail No	Club	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Total	Nett
First	RS100	379	Gurnard SC	Mark Harrison	2.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	4.0	1.0	11.0	11.0
Second	RS100	240	Red Wharf Bay SC	Huw Powell	1.0	8.0 DNF	3.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	16.0	16.0
Third	RS100	428	Port Dinorwic SC	Greg Booth	3.0	3.0	2.0	4.0	2.0	3.0	17.0	17.0
Fourth	RS100	321	Lymington Town SC	Giles Chipperfield	8.0 DNC	2.0	4.0	3.0	3.0	4.0	24.0	24.0
Fifth	RS100	277	Chew Valley Lake SC	David Smart	4.0	4.0	5.0	5.0	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	34.0	34.0
Sixth	RS100	509	Frensham Pond SC	Clive Eplett	5.0	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	45.0	45.0
Seventh	RS100	454	Leigh & Lowton SC	Gav Benbow	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	8.0 DNC	48.0	48.0