RS Elite National Championship at Burnham

by PR/Sail-World/GJN on 12 Jun 2006 Nineteen boats took part in the RS Elite National Championships at the Royal Burnham Yacht Club, held from Friday to Sunday with three races on Friday and Saturday and one on Sunday.

Winners were Michael Patten, David Fleming and Ed Lewis sailing Matterhorn Jack from the Royal Burnham YC. Second place went to Mike Dawe, Simon Payne and Paul Carpenter, sailing Duel from Hayling Island SC. Third were Stephen Herring, James Young and Joe Thompson sailing Bacchanalia, Royal Burnham YC.

The frist two days were magnificent, wind, sun and excelent courses set by Edwin and his crew of race officers and mark layers. Sunday was a hot still day with winds below the 5 knot minimum level at which they would not race.

Because many of the competitors had to get back to Hayling Island on the south coast at the end of the day, there was not time to see if it would fill in and the race was abandoned. Still six races were completed and a good time was had by all.

Mike Tong (Ciao Bella HISC) opened the racing with a win in race one but in race two it was Stephen Herring who took the line honours followed by Mike Patten. This was the start of a blistering run by Patten who won the next three races, no one else managing to match his consistencey.

In what turned out to be the final race Mike Dawe won ahead of Martin Wadhams on RS Sailing.com and the tenth place for Patten was sufficiant to take the title by just one point from Dawe,

The evenings with hog roast on Friday and a sit down dinner on Saturday went well, Men behaving sadly entertained us on Saturday night and the sailors danced untill late then drank till later!

A big thanks must go to all the staff at the RBYC who worked tierlesly to make it as success, the many memebers of the club who helped out when they saw that help was needed and especialy thanks to Yvonne James, Guy Trench and Sue Hooper for overall co-ordination of the weekend.

A final thanks must go to the wonderful people at Eleco who sponsored the event and laid on the Thames barge Thistle, who not only hosted a reception on Thursday evening but also delivered lunch and drinks to all the hot and thirsty sailors at mid day of each race day.

This was the Royal Burnham at it's best. A fantastic weekend and it is hard to go back to work today with all the sunburn but great memories of an event which will be hard to match next year.

Final overall positions:

1 Michael Patten, David Fleming, Ed Lewis 17 2 1 1 1 10 15pts
2 Mike Dawe, Simon Payne, Paul Carpenter 7 4 2 6 3 1 16pts
3 Stephen Herring, James Young, Joe Thompson 3 1 5 4 4 8 17pts
4 Mike Tong, Peter Wareham, Jan Wareham 1 6 12 2 8 5 22pts
5 Alistair Keck, Charlie Merchant Alex Mathieson 2 13 4 6.3 6.3 6.3 24.9pts
6 Jonathan Brown, David Brown, Lynette Brown 6 3 6 5 5 14 25pts
7 Angus Bates, Dave Wood, Fran Wood 8 5 9 15 2 3 27pts
8 Martin Wadhams, Amanda Wadhams, Paul Fisk 4 11 8 8 7 2 29pts
9 Jeremy Tolhurst, Nick Gardner 9 9 3 9 20 4 34pts
10 Nicky Streeter, Jeff Monger, Pauline Streeter, Philip Shanahan 5 7 7 20 11 7 37pts
11 Guy Trench 20 8 10 3 9 11 41pts
12 John Hooper, Alan Gardner, Sue Hooper 13 10 11 11 14 13 58pts
13 Charles Barron, Alex Martin, Joan Pride 12 20 20 10 10 9 61pts
14 John James, Yvonne James, Robert Noble 11 12 16 13 13 12 61pts
15 Andrew Chudley, Derek Corless, Frances Chudley 14 14 14 17 12 20 71pts
16 Steve Powell, Dawson Penn, Hugh Pringle 16 16 13 12 17 20 74pts
17 Gareth Davies, Peter Jenkins 15 15 15 16 15 15 75pts
18 Adrian Lower 10 20 20 14 16 16 76pts
19 Adrian Olsen, Richard Nevill 20 17 20 20 20 20 97pts

Event website: http://www.rbyc.org.uk