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!