Results / RS800 Fat Face Racing Circuit Chew Valley Lake SC - 13/03/2004

A warm sunny and breezy day greeted the competitors of this first RS800 Fat Face circuit event of 2004 at Chew Valley Lake. The race officer set the longest windward leeward possible for the wind direction and using a finish line 2/3 of the way up the beat, the fleet were treated to something a bit different from the usual down wind finishing. The first race set off with Steve Irish and Martin Gotrel having a close fight with Chris Haworth and Stuart Aston for first, while Alex Davies and Sarah Hughes made the best of the shifts to round in third closely followed by Spod Olive and Jane Norris. Spod, who missed the windward mark and had to re-round, collecting another boat in the manoeuvre and picking up some turns. Lots of place swapping down the run with some very narrow lanes of breeze saw Irish/Gotrel and Haworth/Aston stretching away, whilst Olive/Norris recovered to fourth. The tight race for first was concluded when Irish/Gotrel had a bit of interaction with another boat, and lost Haworth/Aston whilst doing their penalty turns. Davies/Hughes just made it in third ahead of Olive/Norris. The naughty 800 fleet got the only general recall of all the fleets at Chew, and started the second race under Black Flag. Davies/Hughes tested the eyesight of the race officer by being half a length over, 3 yards from the committee boat. The fleet set off a great speed towards an ominous looking black cloud, with Haworth/Aston pulling out a useful lead from Irish/Gotrel, Olive/Norris and David Sayce and Chris Doe were chasing hard. The black cloud vented its full 35+ knot fury on the fleet, along with some serious rain just as Haworth/Aston sailed past the windward mark, and on up the lake, unable to bear away. Irish/Gotrel managed the bear away and got the kite up, only to decide to go safe halfway down the run and dropped the kite, but then capsized, letting Olive/Norris cruise through and hold on for a great win, Irish/Gotrel Recovered to second with Haworth/Aston third, and Sayce/Doe storming round in fourth. Race three got away cleanly, with Irish/Gotrel taking control early on and leading round to the finish, Haworth/Aston took second, with Olive/Norris taking a close third from Sayce/Doe. Sunday dawned (just) to the grimmest weather and some quite impressive swell roaring down the lake. The Race Officer recorded a 46knot gust, and cancelled, leaving the open meeting concluded on three results all to count. Steve Irish & Martin Gotrel took the win by a point from Chris Haworth and Stuart Aston with Spod Olive and Jane Norris in third. Treat of the day for the fleet occurred just before the prizegiving, when a large gust persuaded the Stokes bat lad�s triple trailer to bear away down the slipway and onward into the lake, stopping in about 7 feet of water. Special congratulations to Matt Adams for his Baywatch style heroics, whilst in nice dry shore clothes to attempt recovery, and some sterling work by some more sensible people, who seeing the trailer had stopped, got changed before attempting to get wet. Everyone went home with a smile on their face, looking forward to the next round of Fat Face racing at Draycote in two weeks.