RS Vareo Inland Championship at Rutland SC

by Debbie Darling on 27 Oct 2011 RS Vareo Inland Championship was held over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd October 2011 at Rutland Sailing Club. The Vareo fleet enjoyed near perfect conditions with a wind that built up each day from a force three to four. There were some exciting squalls and enough shifts to keep the mind alert too.

We shared a start and outer-loop course with the RS100s and also had to keep an eye out for the large RS800 fleet that seemed to head our way when banging the corners of their windward-leeward course.

The racing was dominated by Andrew Wilson, the current National Champion, who had a clear edge on boat-speed. He gathered five successive first places to add this Championship to his tally for the year.

Behind Andrew the racing was much closer, with four different sailors getting a second place in the six-race series. With some consistent sailing on Sunday, and especially by avoiding capsizing and other boats, Mike Rhodes secured second overall. One point behind was Simon Collinson, who showed some good speed but suffered a few mishaps - like tangling with an RS800 – which dented his scores, but fortunately not him or his boat.

Cheryl Wood struggled on Saturday, and switched to a storm sail for race three – but was bolder and more successful on Sunday. This contrasted with Richard Lee, who picked a big left shift in race two and held on comfortably to second place – but he couldn’t then repeat the performance on Sunday.

Results:

RS Vareo Owners website

Rank	Helm	Sail No	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Total	Nett
1st	Andrew Wilson	583	Datchet Water SC	1	1	1	1	1	(3)	8	5
2nd	Mike Rhodes	305	Netley SC	3	(6)	3	2	2	2	18	12
3rd	Simon Collinson	581	Llandegfedd SC	(4)	3	2	4	3	1	17	13
4th	Cheryl Wood	579	Pennine/Glossop SC	6	(8 DNC)	6	3	4	4	31	23
5th	Richard Lee	599	Grafham Water SC	5	2	5	(8 RAF)	8 DNC	5	33	25
6th	Alex Howard	389	Llandegfedd SC	2	4	4	(8 DNC)	8 DNC	8 DNC	34	26
7th	Jim Woodcock	165	Hickiling Broad SC	7	5	7	5	5	(8 DNC)	37	29