RS Vareo End of Seasons Regatta 2023 at Rutland Sailing Club
by Nick Crickmore 8 Nov 2023 03:19 PST
4-5 November 2023
RS Vareo End of Seasons Regatta at Rutland © Natalie Smith
Despite the adverse weather forecast five Vareos joined in with the end of season fun at Rutland this year.
Our race officer John set us off first along side the RS200s using the outer loop of the trapezoid course - nicely set up so we didn't conflict with the following fleets on the longer course but all finished close enough to get smartly into the subsequent races- both days.
On Saturday we had two races in a moderate breeze and one following a big shift course reset in wind dying to nothing.
There were some significant shifts and a tower disturbing things in the middle of the track to cope with which made for some chances for most of us to take and lose the lead at least once - it's not often you get to see last place Luke at any stage but it happened (temporarily) twice this event!
However the cream always rises to the top and in the end Luke and Michelle shared out the top two spots, Chris and Nick shared the 3s and 4s. Newby Andy showed some promising speed at times but said he still has much to learn.
Post racing we had a brief bar discussion on all things Vareo and a group dinner at the local curry house.
Sunday forecast to have less wind turned out to be even fresher. Blowing the whole length of the lake to the racing area giving the added dimension of a bit of chop.
Luke and Michelle continued to battle closely for first overall with Nick having some good off wind speed to catch up at most of the leeward buoys.
In race 4 Michelle retired following an incident with Luke just short of the finish line allowing Nick to get second.
In race 5 they were both racing so hard that they forgot to go to the finish allowing Nick to take a win and Chris to get between them for third.
In addition to sponsors prizes for the first three we were able to say again: Everyone gets a prize in the Vareo fleet courtesy of our Czech friends who had sent us some Eurocup commemorative glasses to distribute!
The prize-giving also included the overall tour prize vouchers thanks to National Tour sponsor Rooster - overall tour results and prize-giving photos to follow.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Sail No | Helm | Club | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | Pts |
|---|
| 1st | 621 | Luke Fisher | Emberton Park SC | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ‑4 | 1 | 6 |
| 2nd | 444 | Michelle Collier‑Brooks | Oxford SC | 1 | 2 | 2 | (RET) | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| 3rd | 528 | Nicholas Crickmore | Waveney & Oulton Broad | ‑4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| 4th | 649 | Christopher Abbot | Nottingham sc | 3 | ‑4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 16 |
| 5th | 285 | Andrew Nicoll | Oxford SC | (DNC) | DNC | DNC | DNC | DNC | DNC | 30 |