RS400 Northern Tour - Round 2 action at Leigh and Lowton

by Paul Allen on 20 May 2014 A flash full of open water swimmers greeted nine Leigh and Lowton home boats and seven visitors on Saturday 19th May, for round 2 of the Northern Tour. As the athletic wetsuit wearers headed home for granola the somewhat paunchier 400 teams tucked into bacon and eggs care of the brilliant galley. The Met Office predicted light SW winds, slowly building throughout the day. Spot on, however they didn’t predict a fluctuating breeze which couldn’t make it’s mind up, a race officers nightmare!

The competitive fleet saw lots of place changes and a zephyr here and there put life into spinnakers whilst others watched and drifted. Josh and Patrick Metcalf made sense of the testing conditions to post two bullets before the lunch break. Dave Exley and Nigel Hall and Wayne and Deb Fletcher also sailed consistently with top three places.

Following a lunch of chips and Mexican chicken wraps the fleet launched into a steady (compared to earlier races) SW force 2 with the odd gust allowing crews to remove their legs from the chute. The improved conditions allowed Mike Baldwin (PRO) to set a longer course, utilising the length of the flash and allowing more tactical racing. Paul and Michael Allen won race 3 with Wayne and Deb Fletcher in second and Hamish Gledhill and Simon Dowse in third. The fourth and final race was a showdown.

Josh and Patrick had to finish ahead of Wayne and Deb to take the win. Following a general recall the fleet avoided the black flag and set off in hot pursuit of Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman who won the race by some distance. Wayne and Deb Fletcher made the most of the Metcalfs misfortune (broken tiller joint) and finished second, enough to take the win counting sic points. Josh and Patrick Metcalf claimed second on six point. Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman rounded off the top three on nine points. Only four points separated first to fifth! Wayne Fletcher thanked Leigh and Lowton for a sunny days sailing and promised to bring his quadcopter to the next event so we can see a bird’s eye view of how stupidly fast they are in light winds!

RS400 Fleet

Sailed: 4, Discards: 1, To count: 3, Entries: 16, Scoring system: Appendix A

Rank	Fleet	Boat	SailNo	Club	HelmName	CrewName	Rating	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total	Nett
1st	RS400		1029	Scaling Dam SC	Wayne Fletcher	Deb Fletcher		2.0	(4.0)	2.0	2.0	10.0	6.0
2nd	RS400		1215	Y Felinheli/LLSC	Joshua Metcalfe	Patrick Metcalfe		1.0	1.0	5.0	(16.0 DNF)	23.0	7.0
3rd	RS400		703	Delph	Chris Pickles	Matt Sharman		4.0	(5.0)	4.0	1.0	14.0	9.0
4th	RS400		1186	LLSC	Dave Exley	Nigel Hall		3.0	2.0	(7.0)	4.0	16.0	9.0
5th	RS400		1395	LLSC	Paul Allen	Mike Allen		(7.0)	6.0	1.0	3.0	17.0	10.0
6th	RS400		1014	West Riding	Hamish Gledhill	Simon Dowse		6.0	3.0	3.0	(8.0)	20.0	12.0
7th	RS400		1396	LLSC	Richard Catchpole	Mark Atherton		5.0	7.0	(16.0 BFD)	5.0	33.0	17.0
8th	RS400		1131	Welton SC	Ben Williamson	Charlie Ticehurst		8.0	10.0	6.0	(11.0)	35.0	24.0
9th	RS400		1216	LLSC	Caroline Exley	Jude Allen		(9.0)	8.0	8.0	9.0	34.0	25.0
10th	RS400		725	LLSC	Bill Kenyon	Andy Dawson		(14.0)	9.0	12.0	6.0	41.0	27.0
11th	RS400		1161		Ben Robertson	Meg Hobson		13.0	(14.0)	9.5	7.0	43.5	29.5
12th	RS400		1191	LLSC	Louise McKeand	Geoff Edwards		(12.0)	11.0	9.5	10.0	42.5	30.5
13th	RS400		1091	LLSC	Stuart Belfield	Cath Belfield		10.0	(13.0)	11.0	12.0	46.0	33.0
14th	RS400		1289	LLSC	Mark Lunn	Steve Blackburn		(15.0)	12.0	13.0	13.0	53.0	38.0
15th	RS400		595	Chester	Steve Harrison	Liz Gallimore		(16.0)	15.0	14.0	14.0	59.0	43.0
16th	RS400		1212	LLSC	Gary Knott	Helen Blackburn		11.0	(17.0 DNF)	17.0 DNC	17.0 DNC	62.0	45.0

The fleet next visit East Lothian YC for the Scottish Championships on 7/8 June. See details here. Cheerio the nou!