The Gul RS Sprint Championship is perhaps the one event that I look forward to more than other open meetings because of its unique format.  Each race is only one lap on an extended team racing style course, small fleets with max 12 on a start line,  rapid quick fire races lasting 15 minutes, rapid turn arounds,  numerous races,  lots of start,  lots of mark rounding’s,  really close racing where you always felt you had a chance of gaining places and bucket loads of fun.

Rutland SC, the RS Association and the PROs John Fothergill/David Rowland have been slowly refining the format and this year the PROs really had the format right. Combined with the 300s and 400s there were 9 flights on the qualifying rounds on Saturday. By the time you had completed your race and sailed back to the start area the rolling start sequence usually meant that there was only 6-9 minutes to your next 3 minute warning signal.

Keeping the start sequence going is greatly helped by the unique general recall rule;  3 sound signals  and the general recall flag flying does not mean running another start; no it is the signal for the whole fleet to sail round one of the ends, cross the start line again and carry on racing. Cue quick thinking, quality mayhem and pure entertainment for the watching fleets waiting for their start!

Numbers for the 200’s were greatly affected by mass exam pressure and listening too much to the poor weather  forecasts. Saturday turned into a glorious sailing day with warm sunshine and wind well beyond the 6-8 knots forecast. By the second group of qualifying races the wind was a blustery 15-20 knots giving fine downwind action and immense fun between races watching the 400 antics!

After 8 qualifying races Chris Catt/Ally Martin, Charlotte Savage/MJ Gifford and Ian Sharps/Ellie Martin had won their respective flights and a 9 boat qualified for the gold fleet on Sunday with 12 boats in the Silver fleet.

Sunday was very different with autumn weather in June,  it was a cold, grey day with constant heavy drizzle that grew into steady rain with a very shifty 8-14 knots that went from due south to the east. Luckily the forecast really heavy rain did not arrive until drive home and the strong winds seemed to stay on south coast. Luckily the format and shifty conditions meant there was constant action to keep people warm whilst racing.

Everything seemed to happen in the ultra competitive gold fleet as people went up and down the fleet like a yo yo. With no discards producing anything approaching consistent results over the 6 races was going to be the key as was shown by John Teague/Laurie winning the first race comfortably but then scoring two 9ths. Jonny McGoven/Sarah Williams were the consistent performers scoring  five top 3 finishes in the first 5 races with only one race win so a steady  4^th in the final race gave them overall victory by two points. James Boyce/Sam Tozer were clear in second overall with two race wins whilst Dicken Maclean/Hannah Young were rock steady in third overall without a race win.

Recently engaged Chris Martin/Katherine Lovering had a slow start in the silver fleet but really got their act together to win the final three races in a row to win overall by 3 points from Steve/Judie Restall with Tom Wright/Darren McNamara third.

Overall on the Gul Grand Prix circuit McGoven/Williams are a mile clear, the only boat with 4 top ten results; things could get a little closer after the next Gul Grand Prix event at Hayling Island on June 25/26 when a discard comes into play.

Pete Vincent