Results / Burghfield Open Burghfield SC - 30/10/2005

Burghfield Sailing Club RS400 Open Meeting Sun 30 October 2005 Five visitors joined a strong home club turnout of 16 boats for the RS400 Open Meeting at Burghfield SC on Sunday 30 October. The event contributed to one of the busiest weekends ever at the Berkshire club which was also hosting the RS Feva Inland Championships alongside training for the 400s and 200s on Saturday with all three fleets racing on the Sunday. On what is essentially a tight inland venue, this weekend fully tested the event admin and co-ordination skills of the highly competent management team at the Club. With the forecast of a 15mph southerly proving to be about right, competitors were guaranteed lively racing. A southerly at Burghfield comes over a densely wooded hill and across the width of the lake, never quite managing to settle down before it reaches the far shore. It�s a direction where you can expect unpredictable gusts and shifts, and wind lanes downwind that can make the difference between hard planing and drooping spinnakers. Its real snakes and ladders stuff. Steve Middleton and Chris Rowland managed an especially auspicious beginning in the first race that saw them emerge last from a major pile up at the windward mark. They gradually pulled through the fleet and, with one lap to go, picked off a huge shift to leap 5 places and emerge from behind an island to lead by a good 40 yards � much to the dismay of then leaders Tom Jones and Kris Gardner who until that point were fairly comfortably ahead. The race win plus two further third places gave them overall victory on a tie break Jones and Gardner finished equal on points with the winners but suffered the odd calamity and were unlucky not to win the event in conditions where they were clearly quick. In particular, race 2 saw them snatch the lead with less than a dozen boatlengths to the finish line when Jones missed his toestraps coming out of a tack and backflipped into the water, much to the amusement of the Race Team on the nearby Committee Boat. As it turned out, that first place would have given them overall victory. Paul Lewis and Sam Parker were rewarded with third place overall after a tough season where things haven�t really gone their way on the open circuit. Their hard work and determination paid off when they raced to an impressive win in the second race when they also had the added bonus of seeing at close quarters Jones spectacular departure from his boat. Stealing into 4th place overall, Rob and Janet Martin, who have an unbroken sequence of winning this event for several years. With Rob having only just recovered from knee surgery, the early conditions were always going to prove difficult to deal with, but a lighter breeze in race 3 saw the Martins hit the front. Coming through the fleet with pace, however, were Ian Bullock and Rachel Saunt. Having put in two fourth places in the earlier races, they managed the extraordinarily difficult feat of passing the Martins. At the final leeward mark they held a reasonably comfortable lead and put a tight cover on the Martins. But after a monumental battle all the way to the finish, the Martins experience and guile enabled them to pull through right on the line. The day proved a testing one for the visiting boats but Howard Farbrother and Louise Hoskin (Queen Mary), Pete Jackson and James Dyas (British Airways) and Mark Rowland and Gary Waftnorn (Bristol Corinthian) all featured close to the front of the fleet and finishing in top 10 places, separated only by Chris and Gill Jordan from the home club. In all, a challenging and enjoyable event superbly run by Nick Martin and his race team.