RS Feva Grand Prix Series R3 at Datchet Water Sailing Club

Saturday was a real belter. ‘Elf & Safety ensured no-one was allowed near the water without a minimum 1’ of sun protection cream on. Forecast was for good breezes on Sat and the square root of naff all on Sunday. The RO sensibly decided to try for 4 races on Sat in case Sun was purely sunbathing weather. As it turned out the wind was remarkably good if shifty on Sat and Sun was a light but perfectly sailable 6kts. Still, it meant an early finish on Sunday allowing traffic avoidance measures to be taken.

Loads of brand new kit was on show and so racing for 2011 kicked off. It proved to be a sad old event for the 2010 World Champs (Owen Bowerman/Charlie Darling) as they unknowingly attempted to do a Whitfield (record number of BFD’s at last years Nationals). In the hunt in every race yet collared by three OCS’s on the Sat.

The racing itself was tough. Debbie and son,Tommy Darling showed the benefit to be gained from predicting the first shift after the start right and being in the right place to take advantage when they collared 2 first places on the Sunday. Others discovered that the ordinarily sufficient method of informing of the boat outside them that they needed to give water at the mark was in fact insufficient if their were in fact 15 boats all overlapped. And who’d be a RO eh? Between races 3 & 4 it took 40minutes to relay the course on a mega shift and then repeat the trick when it mega shifted back. Still great race management though and many thanks to DWSC for the terrific event they put on.

As it turned the conditions were so tough shifts, holes and gusts, that not a single boat managed all their results in the top 10 (without counting discards). So remarkable credit to the first three overall for managing all their counting results in the top 10 (winners Robert Baddeley/James Taylor, silver medal for Anna Prescott/Jess Eales and bottom podium step Matt Whitfield/Gareth Viney (haven’t they grown this winter!?!).

Big surprise (to some of us anyway, even if not to them) were last years Tera hotshots Josh Aldridge/Flynn Davies from Burnham SC who also managed sufficient consistency to propel themselves into 4th overall! Top stuff. Gemma Bird/Morgan Dibb were 2nd girls in 5th place to keep the Warsassh flag flying high. Jovian Short/James Barlow were the pick of the heavyweights in 7th and looked like giants compared to the superfast but not so large Hugo Andrews/Elliot Spensley-Corfield in 6th.

I’m not sure this totally accurate but I suspect that Ollie Scott/Tom Mitchell from Docklands S&WSC had their best event to date proving that the centre of London is breeding talent nicely when they nailed a 6th place in their 16th overall. It’s great to see development of talent from the London centres coming through. This was also the debut event Claires Court School who rocked up with 3 boats. Paul was ably crewed by Charlotte Dowd into 17th whilst Jack Ward and Charlie Pritchard had a terrific start to their RS Feva racing careers.

All in all there is a lot of terrific new talent in the fleet and we look forward to seeing everyone at the Nationals in Abersoch at the end of May as well as at other Open Meetings. If this w/e is anything to by it’ll be a barnstorming year. SO much to say about everyone I can’t do you all justice for there were many great stories during the w/e but this has rambled quite enough!

Overall Results:

Photo – © Richard Gibbons / Anemoi