Volvo Noble Marine RS Vareo National Championship final overall

by Nick Crickmore on 17 Jul 2015 Volvo Noble Marine RS Vareo National Championship – Thursday – Day 1 - Race 1 - After two hours of sailing to the race course in the open sea and waiting for the RS300s to start under black flag the RS Vareos raced their customary windward leeward course in light shifty breeze race. Race one was won by last year’s National Champ Matt Yallop with Andy Howard second and Paul North third.

Race two - Nick Crickmore showed his colours with Paul second and Andy third. Nick got a significant lead on the beat due to a nice shift in the wind strength on the right-hand side of the beat. Leading results from day one: Andy and Paul joint leaders with five points each.

Friday – Day two

More light winds outside the bar.
Race three had the steadiest wind of the day allowing completion of two full laps with Nick keeping a close cover over Matt most of the way round to take first again. Andy never far behind got third.

Race four started in more wind during which Matt got away. Andy excelled as the wind dropped to get ahead of Nick but did not manage to catch Matt who took the win. Andy was third again.

Race five less wind made it difficult to progress against the short chop upwind with Matt / Andy / Nick finishing order again. Matt was the overnight leader with eight points, Nick and Andy both with 10 points following.

Saturday – Day three

Massive waves and wind encountered outside the bar today.
Race six – Cheryl Wood found good speed to lead at the windward mark from Matt and Nick. Offwind Cheryl took a deeper course with spinnaker and Matt went higher with his to try to take the lead, but got swallowed by the ocean attempting to gybe. This sobered the others into stowing their spinnakers for the remainder of the run (and the second run later). Nick looked set to pass Cheryl when she capsized upwind but she retained her lead due to a speedy recovery and took the race six win, with Nick the only other finisher. With numerous breakages including Cheryl’s boom shortly after finishing the Race Officer directed the fleet ashore after the one race. The RS Vareos packed away for the day not realising potential for further racing in the estuary later. Cheryl back in contention!

Sunday – Day four
With no improvement to conditions outside the bar, two races took place in the estuary.
The competition was getting intense with the normally well-behaved fleet being to subjected to a black flag.

Race seven - over three laps with Matt showing good speed upwind but Nick regaining the lead on the runs and Andy never far away, Nick took a small lead towards the end to win with Matt just regaining second from Andy on the line.

Race eight - Nick and Matt playing winner take all - Matt got to the windward first with Nick sandwiched between Cheryl and Andy behind. Nick gybed off and managed to regain a close second to Matt for the second beat for a gybing duel for the trophy. Matt pushed far right for the final split but found some rocks to put him over allowing Andy, Cheryl and Chelsea to pass and Nick to win the final race of the event making Nick Crickmore the Volvo Noble Marine RS Vareo National Champion 2015.

Thanks to everyone at Dovey YC, in particular, Race Officer Rupert Tildesley, for putting on a great championship and also to the generous sponsors Volvo and Noble Marine.

Next year’s Nationals are at Llandegfedd SC 27-29 Aug 2016. The next RS Vareo event is the RS Vareo Gul Inland Championship at Llandegfedd SC 19-20 Sept 2015. This event will include the Bart's Bash race!

Prize winners:
National Champion: Nick Crickmore
Apprentice (competing in their first RS Vareo Nationals): Chelsea Jackson
First Lady: Cheryl Wood
Fidelis (having competed in at least three previous RS Vareo National Championships): Nick Crickmore
Special mention must be made of Chris Coll who only started sailing this year.

Results by Dovey YC

Pos	Helm	Sailing Club	Class	Sail no.	Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Race 4	Race 5	Race 6	Race 7	Race 8	Gross	Net
1	Nick Crickmore	Waveney & Oulton Broad SC	RS Vareo	165	5	1	1	3	3	2	1	1	17	9
2	Matt Yallop	Middle Nene SC	RS Vareo	162	1	5	2	1	1	8	2	5	25	12
3	Andy Howard	Llandegfedd SC	RS Vareo	565	2	3	3	2	2	8	3	2	25	14
4	Cheryl Wood	Pennine SC	RS Vareo	579	4	6	4	4	4	1	5	3	31	20
5	Paul North	Milton Keynes SC	RS Vareo	443	3	2	5	5	6	8	8	8	45	29
6	Chelsea Jackson	Llyn Brenig SC	RS Vareo	298	6	4	6	6	5	8	4	4	43	29
7	Chris Coll	Olton Mere SC	RS Vareo	266	7	7	7	7	7	8	6	6	55	40