Results / Gul RS200 National Championships Restronguet SC - 17/08/2003

** The final judgement ** After an evening of protests against the race committee over incorrect gate procedure and the fairness of race 7 the GUL RS200 National Championships was concluded in one of the best days at a National Championships the majority of the fleet could remember. The 102 boat fleet found a great force 4, bolt steady from the south west, in Falmouth Bay with a decent sea running. PRO Ian Fraser set a great course and the three leading contenders started to decide the title in fine style. Geoff Carveth/Sarah Allen had a flying start and led at the first windward mark and looked to be pulling out a huge lead. James Date/Harriet Edwards at last showed some form and found the conditions much to their liking and closed right up to Carveth but could not get by. David Giles/Fiona Clark pulled through the fleet to gain a very important third place. With Steve and Paula Irish in the teens Carveth now had the advantage but the other two leading contenders were still well in touch. For the final race there was a very even break on the gate start and there were many boats in contention up the first beat. Giles and Clark had started early and flew in on the port layline just to get round the first mark in the lead by the narrowest of margins from Sydenham/Vaudrey, the Dunns and Greenland/Williams. Sydenham took the lead on the run but Giles took the lead again up the second beat after some encouraging words from Sydenham regarding his weight!! Carveth and Irish were struggling in the teens and it became a nail bitter as to how far these two could catch up and finish. Giles won from Sydenham and Dunn; Carveth did catch up to 7th whilst the Irishs stayed in the teens. The results on the water meant that Giles would win by 2 points but everything now depended on his protest for redress against his disqualification the previous day. The protest was involved as there has been an infringement by Giles on the gate but the race committee had let him start in subsequent starts as they had already abandoned the start. The protest committee had decided that although the race committe had taken the decision to abandon the start there was a delay in flying the correct flags and the infringement had taken place before the race had been properly abandoned. Giles won his case when the protest committee agreed that the protest procedure had not been followed correctly and Giles had no way of knowing he was involved in a protest that concerned him. Many in the fleet felt that natural justice had been done as if the same rules had been applied to a similar scenerio the day before other leading contenders would have been disqualified. So it was on to the prize giving; only the RS200's can shift their prize giving to the night club they had adopted for the week!! Before the main prize giving the coverted Duckhams of the week was awarded with Trudie Danbury (missing a race to go shopping), Pete Vincent (falling asleep outside his front door for 4 hours), Geoff Carveth ("do you know who I am" to a taxi driver) and Paul Dorer (sleeping with a garden gnome in the garden rather than his girlfriend) the main conteneders. Toby Lewis was the popular winner for spending the entire week thinking he was racing in Plymouth and looking at tide charts etc for Plymouth. Onto the main prize giving and an emotional David Giles seemed to thank everyone in the fleet in his speech and ended the evening wearing his wife's dress; its the stuff Champions are made of.