RS400 JP Watersports Scottish Tour – Wormit Traveller Race report

by rs400.org on 17 May 2017 Saturday of the Wormit Boat club traveller was a training day run by Stewart Robertson. A morning of tacking and gybing followed by an afternoon of short races gave the fleet plenty of practice and lot to think about. By the end of the afternoon plenty of grumbling from a certain crew signified a good day on the water.

Fraser Mulford of Wormit put on a barbeque for the fleet in the evening, with drinks provided by Stewart Brewing for the fleet. This of course prompted a visit to the local favourite watering hole for most of fleet. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening and there were more than a few calls for a return to Wormit before the racing had even started.

Flat calm greeted a few sore heads on Sunday morning, which a few people might have been grateful for, but a promising forecast meant hopes were high for a good day racing. The fleet launched late as a light and patchy breeze filled in, it wasn’t long before the forecasted North Easterly filled in properly and a course could be set.

The short, square course sprint format produced some tight racing, combined with a strong tide rushing up the river produced some extremely tight racing. 13 boats on a tight start line with a pronounced bias for the fleet wanting to get out the tide made for some exciting line ups, and huge gains to be made for those finding the right lines.

Keith Bedborough and Kirsty Higgins made a good start to the day in race one with a tactical *cough cough* tack off the start line allowing them to escape the tide early and gain a convincing lead to win with John Mackenzie and Andy Box chasing, Ben Robertson and Jenny Douglas following close behind.

Race two saw most of the fleet fighting for the shallow water, with a much closer rounding of the top mark, Ben and Jenny managed to sneak inside the leading bunch downwind to take the win followed by Bob and Nadia Yeamans on an opportune gust.

Race three saw Stewart and Sarah Robertson finally figuring out their shiny new machine and take a convincing win, this time with Neil McLellan and star local Ross Mauritzen showing a good performance to take second.

The Robertson seniors found their legs and started putting in results for the rest of the races, competing closely with Keith and Kirsty (there were some comments about ‘fresh legs’ around this point), Ben and Jenny fighting hard to keep up. As the tide slowed the first beat started to open up, allowing many more lines of approach, and many more opportunities to gain places. By the final race the lead boats were close on points, leading to an extremely competitive start line and three boats OCS, but even being over the line couldn’t stop Keith and Kirsty from taking the overall trophy.

Bob and Nadia were giving the front runners some serious issues, John and Andy pulled off some good results including a race win, and Neil and Ross were pushing hard, with special mention going to Angus Marshall and Imogen Box for not only getting some solid results but pulling off easily the most cowboy moves of the regatta.

Special thanks go to RYA Scotland for helping with the training, Fraser for setting the bar extremely high for saturday night entertainment, Stewart for running the saturday training, and everyone at Wormit Boat Club for putting on an excellent day racing. And well done to Keith Bedborough and Kirsty Higgins for winning the RS400 Wormit Traveller.