UK RS Grand Prix - Winds of change bring unpredictable results

by Debbie Darling on 20 Apr 2010 Anyone sailing this weekend had full on summer weather, not that the water temperature had cottoned on to the general meteorological bonhomie. Very light winds all weekend, with big holes and massive shifts made it all rather difficult and exceptionally hard for the poor old Race Officer.

The flies up in the midlands are clearly feeling a tad discombobulated as well given the hundreds, nay, thousands, well possibly millions of them out in the sunshine. By my wrist calendar they are the best part of two weeks early for the seasonally conscious Mayfly! A decadent wind on Sunday morning made it possible to get three races in before the heavenly fans shut down again, so a total of five difficult races to savour. Only four boats managed all results in the top 10. Everyone else had at least one pig-in-a-poke.

Consistency was clearly going to pay and no one proved more consistent than Cathy Lear and Francine Counsell. After a six and a five on Saturday, they blitzed it with a clean sweep of wins on Sunday for an overall victory by two points. Ben Binmore and Emma Pearson (a scratch combination for the weekend; Binmore is usually a Cadet sailor but along for the ride to watch his mates in action) might have won on any other day but second wasn’t shabby either! George and Ed Shelley were on their own game as well and took the final podium slot. These three were well clear of the rest. The only other boat with all top 10 results was Rob and Emma Loveridge from the home club who claimed sixth.

Club of the weekend were without a shadow of doubt the Royal Torbay with a little help from both Draycote and HISC. They managed to scoop second (Binmore/Pearson), fourth Jacob Barnett & Andrew Brierley and fifth Morgan Peach and Charlie Darling. A very active club with good training and talented sailors.

Fifth to eighth were only separated by four points. You've heard about fifth and sixth, but in seventh were Adam and Lisa Kay (Warsash) just one point behind the two in front, who had to be separated on countback. Eighth were Jack Martin and Robert McPherson from Flushing and Restronguet respectively.

What was it with the West Country this weekend? Four boats in the top eight and another 20 racing down at St Mawes too.

Rounding out the top 10 were Ruth and Tess Alan in ninth, with Anna McCormack and Toni Duffy in 10th. Ruth and Tess led the Emsworth brigade who had five boats between ninth and 15th! Anna and Toni represented the second Oakham School/Rutland boat in the top 10 following the victors off course! Unluckiest sailors of the weekend were Will Acres and Ed Bowman who were in the lead at three consecutive last marks on Sunday, but still came 13th overall for the third GP running!

Our Dutch friends who came with three boats had a tough weekend. Thomas and Marloes Rot from Vinkeveen (venue of last years Dutch Nationals) fought back to 27th whilst the other two, both from Muiden, Daniel Bramervaer and Thomas van der Brekel, and Chris van de Stad and Kelly Adriaanse came 29th & 32nd respectively. It was wonderful having them over and we can only apologise for serving up the most un-British weather imaginable! It would be marvellous to welcome them back for the Nationals at HISC and I can only hope that they thought it well worthwhile!

The class were experimenting with Live Blogging from the race course and that appeared to be very successful, so many thanks to Tom Paddock for keeping all informed as it happened!

So who has improved most over the winter? I'm not sure, and I'm not certain that too many conclusions can be drawn from this weekend. However, it seems clear that Morgan can turbo charge his vessel whilst Cathy and Francine have poise, maturity and consistency in almost all conditions.

George and Ed seem to improve every month. The leading boats from all the zone and class regional squads having their moments and weren’t lacking in incentive or determination! Having said all that, I think that everyone will still feel that maybe they were denied to a point due to the winds of change.