Results / Gul RS600 Inland Championship Queen Mary SC - 24/10/2009

RS600 Inland Championships at Queen Mary SC

Eighteen intrepid 600 sailors gathered at Queen Mary SC for the 2009 Inland Championships.  There was a good mixture of new and old faces within the fleet and with a 15 – 20 knot breeze forecast it was going to be interesting.

After a delay while the RS400 fleet miss-behaved on the start line, Race 1 saw Richard Smith and Dan Jackson charging off into the lead in the gusty and shifty winds leaving the rest of the pack behind.  Smith won the exceptionally short race whilst Jackson capsized on the final lap allowing David Annan into second place.

There was a long wait for race 2 while the 400s got to practice more starts.  When the race eventually started it was closely fought between Jackson, Smith and John Charles, with Jackson coming out on top.

Jackson took another bullet in race 3 followed by Smith.  There was a lot of place changing in the middle of the fleet with Jason Rickards showing some exceptional speed upwind.

Saturday evening was an unusually quiet affair due to the fleet being spread across Surrey in various B&Bs.  However, we were all amazed at the number of puddings Sainsbury ate!

Sunday morning dawned breezier and launching was even more difficult.  Many of the fleet made the wise decision to launch from the opposite side of the spit to the race area to avoid the lee shore.

Race 4 got away in a solid breeze with the start line very close to the shore.  Annan led at the windward mark only to be blown over by a big gust on the reach.  Jon Bradbury took the lead and started to show some of his potential by doing a horizon job on the fleet.  John Charles continued his consistent regatta to finish in second and Annan took advantage of other people swimming to recover to third.

Annan won race 5 from Sainsbury and Charles after several changes of place, but he was helped by Sainsbury who hadn’t looked at the lap board on the committee boat before the start.

The wind was steadily increased going into the final race and the fleet was now a bit depleted.  Jackson won to seal the event win followed by Sainsbury and Bradbury.

The merit prize for the event was awarded to Olly Scrimshaw who helped everybody with launching and recovering despite not doing much sailing himself.

Thanks go to Queen Mary SC for hosting the event and to Gul for providing the prizes.