Volvo Noble Marine RS400 UK & Irish Nationals at Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club - Day 3

Nick Craig and Tobytastic Lewis at the Volvo Noble Marine RS400 UK & Irish Nationals © Bradley Quinn

If you gauge value for money at a championships by the number of starts you get, Day 3 was a bumper special.

The day kicked off with a postponement ashore as the race committee waited for the forecasted light southerly gradient breeze to develop. But when the fleet arrived at the course area, the 7-9 knot offshore breeze was causing all kinds of problems for the race officials as the direction danced back and forth along the shore. This was not a day to be a race officer unless you had an aptitude for nailing jelly to the wall.

Setting a square line was almost as tricky, but the real problem was encouraging the fleet to stay behind it before the gun. Even a blag flag didn't appear to be a big enough stick.

The result was four abandoned starts and a list of 11 boats on the naughty step. Among those forced to sit out the first race while they thought about what they had done were plenty of the big dogs, including Nick Craig and Toby Lewis (1500). Among the others keeping them company in the sin bin were Mark Oakey and Ben Robertson (1463) and Mike Simms and Jack Holden (1488).

When the fleet finally got away for the first race of the day the breeze had built to the point that everyone was hiking hard off the line. But as the pack approached the top mark under the shoreline, the breeze fluctuated wildly in strength and direction and performed the first of several shuffles of the pack.

By the finish it was Stephen and Sarah Cockerill (1489) who took the win, Barry McCartin and Andrew Penny (1264) took second and Robert Espey and Richard McCulloch (1006) in third.

By the start of the second race the breeze had gone against the forecast and dropped slightly leaving those that cared about such things scrambling around in their effort to change rig settings.

The direction was also still running back and forth along the shore making it difficult to predict which side of the course would pay. Many felt that a set of dice would have been more useful in predicting what would happen next rather than a strong opinion based on sketchy evidence, yet a look at the results suggested that the big guns had it sussed once again as Craig/Lewis (1500) delivered another of their now familiar wins.

But according to Nick the victory had been anything but easy. "We ended up on the wrong side of the first beat and rounded the top mark in 20th," he said. "Gradually we managed to chip away at this through the rest of the race but only took the win on the last gybe into the finish. It was a real needle match behind between Mike Simms (1488) and David Jessop (1004)."

As a plan for how to succeed after a duff first leg this was clearly the kind of strategy that many of us further down the pack had in mind but failed to deliver. But it always sounds easier when described by a winner.

Despite being the bad boys of the day, at least to start with, Craig and Lewis (1500) have been able to discard their BFD and extended their leading margin with a total of just 8 points. The Cockerills (1489) remain in second with 20 points, as Dave Exley and Mark Lunn (1460) muscle their way into third with 36 points.

Behind them the points are much closer with plenty of evidence of a full on scrap to come.

Results after Day 3: