After the wet and windy winter the RS fleets congregated at Grafham for their Winter Champs. The wonderful early forecasts proved true with 20 knots winds over Grafham’s silky smooth water coupled with 16’C temperatures and wall to wall sunshine. If we have those conditions all summer we wouldn’t complain!
Well over half the fleet has now adopted the new racy looking square top mainsails with their go faster national flags. In 20 knots their appeared no difference in speed around the course with Phil Walker and John Mather proving very capable of matching the square tops for speed. However in the lighter parts upwind the square tops would appear to just have that little bit more grunt with their long powerful leaches capable of accessing extra gears.
James Date and Toby Wincer (RWO) laid down their marker for the season on Saturday, getting to grips with the Grafham shift pattern, with three 1sts. Closely behind them was Hugh Shone and Fiona Hampshire with three 2nds demonstrating the courage to split away with an early gybe whenever a Graham Growler was blasting down the shoreline on the right.
However it was all change on day 2 with the top 6 all politely taking turns at the front. James and Toby did their best to snatch defeat after Roger Philips and Will Crocker hit form smashing home two 1sts in Sunday morning's slightly lighter 15knot breeze to take it to a tie break. Peter Barton and Chris Feibusch (Crewsaver, Phase2) gained form over the weekend to win race 6 (you are only as good as your last race...) and came back to 3rd overall. An unlucky final mark tangle cost Hugh and Fiona a few points to take 4th overall. Luck & Emma McEwen (Gill) were probably unlucky to finish 5th after trading places at the front of the tightly packed fleet in every race. Phil and John hammered it home on pressed screaming reach out of the corner of the course to take 2nd in the final race and 6th overall showing the old mains can still hold their own when the surf is up.
“We were a bit crap today” summed up James & Toby’s lacklustre Sunday morning performance. An elated Chris Feibusch exclaimed he was “delighted to finally pop his RS800 race win cherry” (as is customary, Champagne is on him at the next event), but apparently that is not a first for him at Grafham. Well done to Peter Saxton and his Graham SC team for the great racing and prompt race turn arounds.
Next up is a large dose of the more wobbly & salty stuff at Stokes Bay on 12th/13th April. Bring it on!
Pete Barton
RS800 949
