Results / Gul RS400 Winter Championships Leigh & Lowton SC - 07/03/2009
Photo: Michael Dean
Once again Leigh and Lowton sailing club welcomed the RS400 fleet back for their Gul Winter Championships, some may have said that the commodores welcome on the Friday night was a little too warm and jovial for professional regatta preparation...
Leigh del Garda as it is fondly known didn’t fail to deliver the Garda breeze, and the spectator entertainment was high, with the race course being 10 minutes a lap some of the time due to wind direction! We also got 4 seasons in 1 day, and enjoyed the delights of sun and hail and everything in between!
In summary, Nick Craig and Tobytastic Lewis won the 1st race, then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – with someone else winning the 6th. Instead of them winning the final race, everyone was treated to a rudderless sailing masterclass after a shark took off most of Nick’s rudder.
In a little more detail…. 27 boats made the trip despite potential gales, with boats from as far afield as the Isle of Wight and Bassenthwaite Lake . Saturday really was Nick and Toby’s day, pretty much untouchable, but Woozy and Greebo in a local boat did show them where to go in race one, after that is really was back to business for the rest of the day. In the rest of the fleet there were lots of new faces and lots of changes to who was in which boat and who was doing what – Mark Hogan had hold of the the tiller of 962 for the weekend after 15 years at the front of the bus. Saturday was massively shifty and puffy and knowing where to go was handy, brothers Allen and Metcalf seemed to get this right. It was a bit of a ‘first day back at school’ and there was a lot of spins and excitement from the short course! Chris Gowers was the unluckiest from this, with another boats pole clean removing him from his boat at the leeward mark.
Saturday evening’s social was quite revolutionary, and what we hope is a sign of more evening fun! Commodore Allen sensibly booked us a comedian and a curry night at the club and revelry continued till late! The comedian worked the room very well, thanks to Mr Allen and knew exactly who to tease – most of the fleet have now been given new nicknames and the rest of them woke up with a tummy ache from laughing too much…
Sunday dawned sunny and breezy after the rain and gale that blew through on Saturday night. The wind had shifted, thank goodness, which meant the course could be a little longer than the day before – a good thing, with the extra 10kts of breeze we had. Nick didn’t have it all his own way on the Sunday. In the 3 races, each of Allens, Metcalfes and Parker/Jagger guided the fleet around the course, proving the importance of hitting the far bank upwind and down. Josh was unlucky to swim whilst leading the 5th race, but is forgiven – it was in a hail storm – the Allens hung on to win the final race from Dave Exley.
A big thank you to the club, top racing, a great race team, great food and a fantastic evening on Saturday!
Next stop is Northampton on the 21/22 March – Saturday's coaching is now fully booked, but do join us for racing on the Sunday if you haven’t already entered the training. Then onto Datchet for the first multifleet Racing Circuit event of 2009.