Results / RS Fat Face Racing Circuit Weymouth and Portland SA - 05/07/2003
Thirty five RS800�s turned up at Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy
planning on doing some serious sun tanning for the weekend as the mid
week forecast showed not a single isobar within sight of the south of
England.
Not even the sun showed its face on Saturday, let alone any wind, and to
the shock of the 800 fleet the sound signal went to release the fleet as
we all stood around watching the 29er�s who had been out training, rowing
back in for their lunch.
The race officer proved us all wrong though as a 3-4 knot breeze filled
in. Not ideal conditions for the 800, but with 35 boats on the race
course in the harbour, the racing was always going to be good.
Race one was lead for the first lap by James Date and Mark Hogan in Sea
Sure, but they were reeled in on the second beat by Steve Irish and
Martin Gotrell in Magic Marine, Mike Lennon and Emma White, and Geoff
Carveth and Craig Davies in Fat Face. Irish/Gotrell took the race from
Lennon/White and Carveth/Davies.
This started a similar pattern for the rest of the day and a lot of place
changing throughout the fleet, but with Irish/Gotrell and Lennon/White
showing good speed and always pulling through the fleet to score the best
results of the day; 1,1,4 and 3,3,2 respectively. Ricky Tagg and Roz
Allen sailed very well in the tricky conditions to score 6,2,1 winning
the last race of the day by a big margin. Carveth/Davies and Date/Hogan
completed the overnight top five with a notable performance form Justin
Deal and Sarah Marriot new to the class and making regular appearances at
the front of the fleet and scoring a 4th and a 5th in 6th overall.
Day two dawned with the promised sunshine and a little more breeze that
increased throughout the day and even gave us some twin trapeezing for a
moment or two in the last race. Just about the entire fleet were nursing
fairly severe hangovers after another classic RS night out on the town in
Weymouth. With many people sleeping in cars and vans at the Academy, the
dinghy park was not a pretty sight on Sunday morning!
The race officer had obviously not been out drinking with the rest of us
and was keen to get racing away on time at the very unsociable hour of
11.30am�?! One very short postponement upon realisation that there was
no one there, allowed some but not all of the fleet to arrive!
Irish/Gotrell in Magic Marine started the day as they did on Saturday
with a convincing bullet, followed by Lennon/White, Carveth/Davies in Fat
Face and Nicole Johnson and Rob Sherrington also new to the 800 quickly
finding their feet in 4th.
With some real snakes and ladders to be found in race 2 of the day as the
wind settled in and increased a bit, it was Tagg/Allen who kept their
boat in the right place at the right time to take their second race
victory of the weekend with Irish/Gotrell again pulling through when it
mattered to take 2nd. Johnson/Sherrington�s day got even better with a
3rd. Paul Bartlett and Stuart Woodger having scored a 3rd in the last
race on Saturday added a 4th to their scorecard and stayed inside the top
10 all day to improve their overall position.
The final race of the weekend again saw several race leaders with Ben
Farren-Price and Martin Winter making an appearance at the front for a
good part of the race. Eventually though it was Irish/Gotrell and
Lennon/White picking off boats round the course to take 1st and 2nd. 3rd
again were Johnson/Sherrington showing that they are going to be a force
to be reckoned with when they have spent more than a couple of months in
the boat!
Irish/Gotrell sailing Magic Marine took the event with an awesome
scoreline, counting a 1,1,1,2,1 and discarding a 4th, not bad when some
of us were struggling to stay in the top 10! Lennon/White were also very
consistent with two 3rds and three 2nds to count. Tagg/Allen managed to
discard their 13th in race 4 and be the boat that stole 2 races from
Irish to finish 3rd overall. Carveth/Davies in Fat Face, and Date/Hogan
sailing Sea Sure did well enough to hold their overnight positions and
finish 4th and 5th.
Thanks to the team at WPSA for starting the races on time despite the
lack of enthusiasm from a hungover 800 fleet, running 6 good races in
less than ideal conditions, and providing us with bacon and egg
sandwiches and tea!
Next stop Lake Como from the 21 � 25 July� Bring it on!
1 922 Steve Irish Martin Gotrel 6 1 1 4 1 2 1
2 1061 Michael Lennon Emma White 12 3 3 2 2 6 2
3 932 Ricky Stagg Roz Allen 15 6 2 1 13 1 5
4 1000 Geoff Carveth Craig Davies 21 2 5 7 3 7 4
5 1001 James Date Mark Hogan 31 4 7 5 6 9 9
6 1019 Paul Boutlott Stu Woodger 33 11 16 3 8 4 7
7 874 Nicole Johnson Bob Sherrington 37 23 12 15 4 3 3
8 847 Justin Deal Sarah Marriott 41 5 4 11 9 17 12
9 943 Ben Farren-Price Martin Winter 48 10 18 16 5 11 6
10 1050 Matt Adams Jaemi Gebhard 50 18 6 18 10 5 11
11 818 Matt McGovern Max Capener 50 12 13 9 11 8 10
12 1010 Chris Mayhew Mark Stowe 63 16 14 8 12 13 21
13 1057 Spod Olive Mike Warren 64 13 9 6 17 21 19
14 1055 Neil Ashby Jeremy Davis 68 21 10 10 16 19 13
15 839 Alex Davies Sarah Davies 70 17 8 14 22 15 16
16 967 Jason Smith Julia Plumstead 72 24 24 12 7 12 17
17 90 Jon Partridge Tim Smith 76 32 21 23 14 10 8
18 1047 Charles Coulborn Nick Bishop 84 15 15 13 18 23 36
19 1013 Joe Turnbull Richie Burlingham 87 9 22 19 15 26 22
20 1009 Paul Taylor Julie Taylor 97 25 25 33 19 14 14
21 925 Siman Jenkins Neil Arnott 97 20 19 17 23 18 25
22 929 Ronald Millar Nigel Furness 99 7 20 25 20 27 36
23 956 Ian Martin Simon Morris 99 8 17 22 36 29 23
24 915 Jethro Gebhard Carinna Perkins 109 14 28 32 36 20 15
25 892 David Pyke Robert Pike 119 19 27 24 24 25 36
26 833 Pippa Baker Mostyn Evans 121 27 26 26 25 24 20
27 926 Alastair Shires Penny Shires 123 36 30 30 29 16 18
28 859 Laurence Fearnley Belinda Cole 129 26 11 20 36 36 36
29 930 Paul White David White 135 30 31 31 21 22 36
30 953 Andrew Pickrell Nick Lett 142 31 34 21 36 32 24
31 836 Derek Buchanan Elaine Buchanan 142 28 32 29 27 30 28
32 854 Sam Sutton Jessie Gebhard 144 29 33 28 36 28 26
33 898 Bill Smith Becki McKenzie 146 36 29 27 28 33 29
34 899 Neil McLellan Hugh Coleman 153 22 23 36 36 36 36
35 910 Simon Cox Katherine Cox 156 36 36 36 26 31 27