Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club

At last the RS200 winter day series… the October warm up event was sailed in gales gusting well into Force 7 and dare I say Force 8 territory. Then the excitement of the first day of the series was soon lost to the fog and complete lack of wind in the November opening day.

So, with neither cancellations nor disappointments this month, 10 RS200s took to the reservoir for the December races including two guests from Papercourt and Littleton sailing clubs. There was enough of a breeze, about Force 3, for the first of the races to hold enough excitement to fly around the course set by the race officer (Roy) without any risk of capsizing. I’m not too sure how the boats got away for the start as I spent the first 3-4 minutes of the race untangling my spinnaker from the forestay and jib. So by the time I got away the RS200 fleet was well round the first mark and I was chasing to catch up to the rear of the Handicap fleet up the first beat. But, it looked like Peter and Chris held the flag for the sailing club by coming in first place.

Race 1 Results
1 - 1236 Peter Curtis & Chris Golding (IBRSC)
2 - 1353 Dan Goodman & J Lloyd (Littleton SC)
3 - 1265 Julie Harrison & Fiona Fardon (IBRSC)

To race 2, the first of the back to backs. This time no spinnaker excuses (and a very rushed cup of coffee… the joys of coming last and fixing rigging means there is not much time between the first and second races for luxuries in the club house) and a slight drop in the wind saw all the boats away from the start line with no incidents. I found myself stuck between two 200s so made a quick shift to turn the boat onto a port tack to find some clean air which surprisingly worked well as I rounded the first mark with the fleet. The lead boats started to establish themselves in a group with visiting boats from Papercourt and Littleton accompanied by Peter, Julie and Dicken battling it out for the top 3 places.

Race 2 Results
1 - 1353 Dan Goodman & J Lloyd (Littleton SC)
2 - 681 Phil White & Rob White (Papercourt SC)
3 - 1236 Peter Curtis & Chris Golding (IBRSC)

The final race of the day saw the wind drop to Force 2 and Phil and Rob White (Papercourt) take first place from Dan Goodman and J Lloyd (Littleton). Thereby they also captured first place in the overall positions for the day.

Race 3 Results
1 - 681 Phil White & Rob White (Papercourt)
2 - 1353 Dan Goodman & J Lloyd (Littleton)
3 - 1236 Peter Curtis & Chris Golding (IBRSC)

Overall Winners of the day and a bottle each of Burgundy's Grand Cru
1 - 681 Phil White & Rob White (Papercourt SC)
2 - 1353 Dan Goodman & J Lloyd (Littleton SC)
3 -1236 Peter Curtis & Chris Golding (IBRSC)

The full results can be found with this link