RS200 Northern Tour – Ullswater YC RS200 Open Meeting 2017

The second event of the 2018 Sailing Chandlery sponsored RS200 Northern Tour took place over the weekend of Saturday 14^th & Sunday 15^th April as part of the Ullswater YC Easter Regatta.

Saturday greeted the 15 competitors with a light Southerly F1-2, in theory the best wind direction for Ullswater, however there were some big holes in the wind which could catch the unwary.

In the first race, the two Penty boats dominated with James Penty & Eddie Grayson winning from Dad, Martin, crewed by Sam Waller.  Martin and Barbara Smith sailed a solid race to finish third.

In the second race, the wind shut off at the top of the second beat, which made the run particularly challenging.  Two boats gybed off at the windward mark and picked up a zephyr to start challenging the leaders.  Jon & Heather Ward looked to have made some significant gains before coming to grinding halt on the reef.  In the end it was the main pack that came out best with Martin & Sam winning from Martin & Barbara, with Martin & Sian Joesbury in third.

The final race of the day saw the wind rise to a F2 and saw new faces to the fore.  Ollie Groves & Esther Parkhurst, the 2017 Northern Tour series winners won the race after a slow start to the event.  Alex & Olivia Leonard came second, and third was Richard Marsh crewed by his young daughter, Lauren.

Overnight, it had been a day for the Martins with Martin & Sam first, Martin & Barbara second and Martin & Sian third.

The Sunday forecast looked a lot better with a F4-5 south easterly forecast, but the reality was slightly different: a F2-3 easterly.  As expected with the wind coming over the hills, there were some significant shifts in the wind and these needed to be exploited.

The fourth race saw the steady march of Ollie & Esther who sailed away from the fleet for an easy win.  Second was Martin & Sian with the ever-consistent Martin & Sam taking third place.

The fifth race was another straight forward win for Ollie & Esther, with Martin & Sam taking second and Robin & Erin Dawson taking third.

In the sixth race Jon Chapman & Wendy Martin took what looked like a significant lead round the first mark, but their challenge faded as the race went on.  Martin & Sam came through to take first place from Richard & Lauren, who were doing amazingly well considering their lack of crew weight.  Third was Ollie and Esther.

At this stage the fleet came in for lunch with Martin & Sam having a seemingly unassailable lead.  However, the sailing of the seventh race meant that Ollie & Esther could potentially discard the second of two poor results from the Saturday, so it was all to play for.

The final race saw Ollie & Esther take the lead up the first beat never to be headed.  Second was the young guns of Ciaran McKettrick & Izzie Hunter, who had been showing flashes of speed all weekend but never putting it together over a whole race.  Third were Martin & Sam, who had been the most consistent boat over the weekend, never scoring anything worse than a fourth.

When the final scores were totted up, Ollie & Esther’s final race win had been enough to see them win the event by one point from Martin & Sam.  Martin & Sian proved the best of the rest to take third overall

As part of their Sponsorship package, Sailing Chandlery are providing a £20 voucher as a raffle prize at each event on the Northern Tour, which was won by Martin & Barbara Smith.

Many thanks to Ullswater YC for hosting the event, to Jon Abbatt and his race team for providing some excellent racing and to Paul Hargreaves and Tim Olin for the photos.

The Northern Tour would also like to thank Sailing Chandlery for their sponsorship support for this year’s series.