Results / Inland Championships Grafham Water SC - 06/10/2012

RS 200s at Loch Tay for Series Opener

The first of the RS200 travellers series for 2011 was held at Elite Watersports, Loch Tay. The event comprised a FREE training day on the 23 April and a FREE one day event on the 24th.

The event was sponsored by Elite Watersports and the Sunday racing was run professionally by the Scottish Sailing Institute who travelled from Largs to assist the watersports centre. There were no fees for the training, the regatta or the barbie on the Saturday night which was kindly laid on by Scott Hyslop who runs the cafe at the centre. Our sponsor also made the announcement on the big series prize for this years travellers��details below.

The training was run by Richard Evans, a 200 sailor himself but more recently he has been deploying his skills in the Scottish youth coaching programmes. Richard was assisted by Robbie Burns who kindly volunteered his time to help with the training whilst having a weekend resting his 200. Robbie also took some great footage of the racing and individuals performance on the Sunday. 9 boats attended for an excellent few sessions that covered boat set up on shore and tacking and gybing on the water. The afternoon session of starting practice was a short one as the wind deserted the fleet, and we headed ashore for the video debrief and free barbie. Some new faces in the fleet - Tim and Carol Jones from Cramond, Robin Shellcock and Max Nicholson from Loch Tummel - had to suffer the same misery of the more experienced hands as everyone's errors were put up for view on TV. No excuses for poor work the next day now!

Sunday started off windless but an initial postponement of 1 hour let an 8 knot breeze fill in. It shifted in direction over the course by up to 30 degrees with some stronger gusts, but the race officer, Alastair Leicester of the Scottish Sailing Institute, did a great job in providing 4 races over the course, 2 in very shifty conditions.

Race 1 saw Ronnie and Tor Millar win the pin by being over the line and planted on the mark. Fiona Hall and Ashly Martin led at the first mark followed by Graham and Vicki Tait. This remained the order until the penultimate downwind leg when Ronnie took advantage of a large gust to switch to planing mode and took the lead, with Fiona and Graham following for the 2nd and 3rd.

Race 2 was dominated by Martin Faulkner and Vicki Simpson, leading off the line and building up a substantial lead. Ronnie recovered from another premature start to take 2nd, with Chris Perry and Kirsty Lytton taking the 3rd.

Race 3 and Ronnie lead at the windward mark from Martin and that order was maintained to the finish. Chris took another 3rd.

The final race was between Ronnie and Martin for the win. Graham started off at the pin end, and led the whole race to take the win. Behind Ronnie led from Martin at the first mark and covered him the rest of the race to take 2nd and the overall win. Fiona took 3rd place with Martin 4th.

Overall this gave Ronnie the win from Martin, with Graham 3rd overall.

At the prize giving JP of Elite Watersports announced his main sponsorship for the RS200 class this year - all the boats that qualify for the Scottish Series will go into an end of series draw for a new gennaker. 4 events are needed to qualify - so get traveling. Next up is Largs on 21 and 22 May which is the first combined Scottish and Northern Circuit event.