Results / Crewsaver End of Season Championships Datchet Water SC - 10/11/2012

26 800's joined up with the rest of the RS fleets for the Crewsaver End of Season Champs. With 155 boats around, the race teams did a great job across the two courses in putting on 6 good races.

The first day of racing opened with a fickle 4-6 knot breeze and big holes in it. Tom Halhead / Stu Jagger and Dave Hivey / Sarah Martin - SailingTogs made the early running, with these two boats completing the three laps indicated and heading for the finish line. Silence awaited them however, having not been intelligent enough to read the sailing instructions beyond "800's - inner loop" (Tom), or deciding that the bacon roll queue made more sense than the briefing (Dave). Fortunately those slightly more organised realised than an extra lap around the outer loop was required and Justin and Emma Deal led this to take the win from James Date and Toby Wincer.

A black flag was required to get the second race underway after one failed attempt, and some tight racing at the front of the fleet saw Luke and Emma McEwan take the win from Date and Wincer with Roger Phillips and Will Crocker in third. Light was starting to fade by the time the third race got underway, with Halhead and Jagger picking the wrong side of the final upwind leg to allow Phillips and Crocker through to take the win, with Hugh Shone and Hannah Tattersall third.

Sunday dawned utterly windless, with a couple of boats calling it quits and heading home. A short postponement gave way to a slowly building breeze which got to the point of marginal twin wiring by the end of the day. Tom and Stu took the opening race from Dave and Sarah, with Roger and Will displaying ominous consistency in tricky conditions in third. The second race saw both corners pay but not much for the guys in the middle, and Alastair Hodgson and Sue Ogg made the most of this to take the early lead. Roger and Will eventually sailed through to take the win though from Justin and Emma, and Tom and Stu.

The final race saw a real tussle for the lead through the race between Dave and Sarah, Tom and Stu and Nick Charles and Christian Humphrey. At times this proved to be more a case of 400 dodging with Christian taking the Ferrero Rocher ambassadorial award for inter-fleet diplomacy. The three boats finished in this order, with Roger and Will finishing just behind to deservedly take the overall win, being the only boat to put 5 counters in the top three.

Thanks go to Datchet Water SC for organising a great event in testing conditions, and Crewsaver for their sponsorship. Thoughts now move on to next year where a great programme of circuit events has been put together, culminating in the Europeans in Carnac, which has to rank as a must do location on anyone's list, and the nationals at the great Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club.