RS 300 Sprint Championships overall

by Pete Ellis on 13 Apr 2015 RS 300 Sprint Championships – Not since the great John Regis, have robustly framed athletes and sprinting been successfully combined in one sentence - but with the feisty forecast for the annual Sprint Championships at Rutland, twenty 300's set forth with the larger 'athletes' looking forward to some cracking racing.

Special mention has to go to the Prestwick duo, Mark and Alistair who travelled the furthest, but bringing their own 'Anemoi - Greek God of Wind' - aka commodore Tracy - was a possibly a step too far.

Saturday dawned and the fleet set off to the far east of the lake in a base 20 knot NW'er for the first set of six races. As ever the slick Rutland Water SC organisation had split the fleet into four flights enabling everybody to race each other and set the usual testing windward leeward course.

It was clear from the onset that the conditions were going to be tricky with a few casualties on the way to the start, it may be April already but the water at four-degree C was plenty cold enough. As ever the upwinds, whilst hard work were always going to be the pre-curser to the downwind and gybe mark mayhem that followed and at times a more cautionary approach paid big dividends.

After the first rotation the key beneficiaries were Rich le Mare and Pete Ellis, racing in the same flight and sharing a clutch of first and seconds, Pete benefitting from a mistake by Rich on a particularly slippery piece of water a mere 150m from the finish of race three to snatch a one-point lead - could that of been a costly error?

Everybody had at least one swim, some were being exceedingly greedy and having more than their fair share of capsizes and with half the fleet already back in the hutch, the PRO made the decision to abandon the rest of the days racing for the 300's only.

With the Sunday Forecast looking daunting, the fleet over did the evening entertainment at the Wheatsheaf. The returning Mr and Mrs Mike Bees held court on their thrones and newbie Declan Clamp acted as court jester.

A somewhat jaded fleet arrived on Sunday to only 10-15 knots, but as predicted the wind rose to a base 23 knots gusting well into the 30's the PRO after consultation with all the fleets abandoned racing for the day.

So after only three races on Saturday Pete (chick and mushroom) Ellis was confirmed as Sprints Champion, with Rich (steak and ale) le Mare one point behind rueing that capsize in R3, Steve (Cornish pastie) Bolland taking third and Timbo and Luke just need to eat more pies...

The Grand Prix series continues on 9/10 May with the inaugural slalom championships at Bristol Corinthian.

Many thanks to the team at Rutland, for your hard work in trying conditions, always tweaking the format and seeking feedback from the competitors - we'll be back in 2016.

Final results

 

Rank	Sail No	Club	Helm	R1	R2	R3	Total	Nett
First	500	Stewartby Watersports SC	Pete Ellis	2	1	1	4	4
Second	540	Bartley SC	Richard Le Mare	1	2	2	5	5
Third	411	Bristol Corinthian YC	Steve Bolland	2	4	1	7	7
Fourth	328	Sheffield Viking SC/Nefyn SC	Tim Keen	3	2	3	8	8
Fifth	518	Hykeham SC	Luke Pepper	3	3	3	9	9
Sixth	321	Hykeham SC	Andy Bayliss	5	1	4	10	10
Seventh	323	Sheffield Viking SC	Matt Jenkins	5	5	4	14	14
Eighth	481	Royal Victoria YC	Martin Harrison	1	3	20 DNC	24	24
ninth	476	Hykeham SC	Steve Sallis	4	4	20 DNC	28	28
10th	336	Prestwick SC	Mark Taylor	20 DNC	20 DNC	3	43	43
11th	520	Brightlingsea SC	Mike Bees	4	20 DNC	20 DNC	44	44
12th	342	Southport SC	Ian Hopkins	20 DNC	20 DNC	5	45	45
13th	383	Shotwick Lake SC	Stuart Hopson	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	318	South Cerney SC	Garry Morris	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	433	Gt Yarmouth SC	Dave Houghton	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	490	Prestwick SC	Alistair McLaughlin	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	332	Lymington Town SC	Declan Clamp	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	313	Highcliffe SC	Ben Green	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60
13th	457	Bough Beech SC	Alistair Wood	20 DNC	20 DNC	20 DNC	60	60