Thanks Stu.
Unfortunately we blew our series; we were =7th overnight, but a second DNF in race 6 dropped us to 13th/30. However, we managed race finishes of 2nd & 4th which was nice.
Saturday was fantastic racing with 5 races on 'the light side of medium' say 6-11knots. Plenty for good racing with some pretty hard hiking (knees nearly recovered) still required in the Xenons. Probably a perfect wind for the event with the heavy teams not being able to out grunt the lightweights.
Sunday had one race and the wind dropped right off as the 6th boat sniggled through the finish line against the increasing tied. Other boats (N12, Enty,49er,Cherub) who left the bank for the finish line drifted helplessly backwards. Time limit was that anyone over 15 mins after the winner gets DNF, so only 6 finishers. Perhaps not a great rule in light winds and a strong tide?
I think the Xenons were a great equaliser with a mix of heavy and light teams through the results. They also equalise the various skill sets of the competitors being reasonably basic to sail and rig. A real testament to the philosophy of 'its not what you sail but how you sail it'. You can either blame the boat and be miserable or embrace the challenge.
The event as always proved very interesting with Champions forced out of their own class comfort zone having to cope with new challenges - assy kites, having crews & jibs, having to hike etc, not to mention the venue. A humbling experience for most at some point, where champions who are used to winning having to fight hard to maintain positions down the fleet. Competition was harsh; in addition to the 'moving carpet' effect of the tide there seemed to be another moving carpet effect - that of the fleet which from top to bottom kept moving around the course at pace and was often very tightly packed. Any error - a bad rounding, loosing 'the groove' or stepping to far into the tide - was normally punished by loosing not one but maybe a tranch of 4 boats at a time.
Yoof classes (Feva,Pico,Laser4.7, Mirror, Cadet) put in a creditable perforance with several top ten results and notably the 4.7s leading the last race before finishing 3rd.
Man of the match in my view; National 12 sailors Graham Camm & Zoe Ballantyne in 3rd overall who dont normally sail a spinnaker class and hiked their lightweight socks off.
Well done to Topper for doing a great job providing 30 identical brand new boats and other event sponsors, Hyde, Musto, Selden and to RCYC for running a great event again.
Still, it would have been nice to do it in Cherubs. Bloodaxe to provide 30 brand new E5s next year please! That would sort Nick Craig out!
