RS300 Scottish Nationals at Prestwick

by Alan Henderson on 29 Jul 2013

At the RS300 Scottish Nationals, David McCardle showed excellent consistency, along with grit and determination, to take the Scottish RS300 title from a quality fleet at Prestwick. The whole weekend was characterised by light changeable winds and beautiful sunshine in which the race management team did an excellent job to run six closely fought races.

The series of six races saw four different winners, and the whole fleet swapping places during races. McCardle got the perfect start in race 1 with a win, followed by newcomer Tom Whiteside. This was to be prophetic for the event as a whole, but more of a surprise was Alistair McLaughlin (Storky) who has stepped out of his Musto Skiff, and came last in the first race! He was on a very steep learning curve as he then proceeded to win the next two races to leave him in pole position overnight.

With more of the same in terms of weather on Sunday all was to play for, and in race 1 Cattanach and Beveridge showed the way, until Beveridge fell into a wind hole, and Cattanach fell into the sea. David Sinclair won that race and was looking good in race 6 when wind filling in from behind left him at the back of the pack.

Going into the final race it was between McCardle, Storky and Whiteside for the trophy. Whiteside and Beveridge got away well, but an OCS for Storky saw him fall out of the running. McCardle managed to overhaul Beveridge with a couple of legs left, and finished behind Whiteside. It was so close that nobody could figure out who had won during the sail ashore, but when the scores were added up we had a deserving new Scottish Champion. Well done too to Tom Whiteside and Storky, newcomers who showed some old hands how to do it.

Class	SailNo	Club	HelmName	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Total	Nett
RS 300	403	Prestwick	David McCardel	1.0	(3.0)	2.0	2.0	1.0	2.0	11.0	8.0
RS300	374	Prestwick	Tom Whiteside	2.0	2.0	(4.0)	3.0	2.0	1.0	14.0	10.0
RS 300	527	Prestwick	Alistair McGlaughlin	(10.0)	1.0	1.0	7.0	3.0	6.0	28.0	18.0
RS300	416	Prestwick	Neil Beveridge	4.0	4.0	(5.0)	4.0	4.0	3.0	24.0	19.0
RS300	503	Prestwick	David Sinclair	3.0	7.0	(8.0)	1.0	5.0	4.0	28.0	20.0
RS300	450	Sunderland YC	Mark Henman	5.0	5.0	(7.0)	5.0	6.0	5.0	33.0	26.0
RS 300	336	Prestwick	Mark Taylor	6.0	9.0	3.0	6.0	7.0	(12.0 DNS)	43.0	31.0
RS300	507	Prestwick	Alasdair Catanach	9.0	6.0	6.0	8.0	8.0	(12.0 DNS)	49.0	37.0
RS300	508	Prestwick	Alan Sinclair	8.0	8.0	10.0	9.0	9.0	(12.0 DNS)	56.0	44.0
RS300	437	Prestwick	Malcolm Downie	7.0	(12.0 DNF)	9.0	10.0	10.0	12.0 DNS	60.0	48.0
RS300	521	Prestwick	Eamon Rankin	(12.0 DNS)	12.0 DNF	11.0	12.0 DNS	12.0 DNS	12.0 DNS	71.0	59.0