Results / RS Fat Face Racing Circuit South Caernarvonshire YC - 30/04/2005

RS200 Fat Face Racing Circuit at South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club – it really was a game of two halves. The RS200 Fat Face racing Circuit event at South Caernarvonshire YC attracted a great entry of 41 RS200’s over the May Bank Holiday weekend. All boats travelled from outside of North Wales including competitors from as far afield as the Isle of Wight and Derwent Reservoir. It looked as if the excellent weather forecasts all week had been taunting and teasing us with promise of good southerly winds as competitors arrived on Saturday in rain and low cloud. By the time of the first race there was a very gentle breeze although not great visibility. John Lewis/Katy Nichol and Geoff Carveth/Lucy Loopy Matthews had great starts and were clear at the first mark; they continued to pull away to be 1.2 in a slow race which some described as exciting as having teeth extracted. With sunshine trying to break through a second race was started in still light airs. PRO Barry McGill quite rightly abandoned the race half way up the first beat on the grounds that the wind had swung so far many competitors put up their kites and also John Lewis was again leading which would have been too much for the fleet! As sea mist rolled in hiding the shore racing was then abandoned for the day. Ashore there was quite a long list of people OCS from race 1, including Lewis and Nichol plus some from subsequent re-starts of race 2. Carveth/Loopy Matthews hence won race 1 from Trudie Danbury/Karen Baker and SCYC’s Alex Taylor/Sam Jones in a boat straight out the wrapper. Thankfully Sunday saw the clouds lift and early sunshine bring a good southerly breeze. In almost the complete opposite of Saturday Abersoch Bay now treated the competitors to superb conditions with a good 12-18 knots of breeze very steady in direction. Four excellent races were held; good job the PRO was quicker at turning races round than the galley was at serving breakfasts!! James Stewart/Lucy the other one Matthews celebrated his beloved Chelsea winning the title by winning the first race with some style from Lewis/Nichol and David Giles/Jane Willian. Carveth/Loopy Matthews won race 3 with Giles/Willian in close company. There was now some great competitive racing taking place with many of the leading national contenders well to the fore. Giles/Willian led race 4 but Lewis/Nichol got through on the second run to win. Steve Dunn/Noelle Vidal stormed the last run to grab second just ahead of Giles. With Carveth/Loopy black flagged the event was now wide open. Carveth/Loopy made sure of winning the final race but Giles and Lewis were always very well placed in the leading group with Giles/Willian claiming second. Lewis/Nichol, Stewart/the other Matthews and Pete Vincent/Tessa Nicholls arrived at the final windward mark together and all three made schoolboy errors in rounding. Lewis critically recovered the quickest to claim a very important third, which gave them overall victory by a point. Lewis/Nichol and Giles/Willian had been remarkably consistent on Sunday. Carveth/Loopy Matthews had won three races but paid the price for an OCS and a navigation problem in the second race. Stewart/Matthews were very close to the leading group whilst Danbury/Baker won the now compulsory extremely tight Bristol Corinthian 5 boat battle by beating Vincent/Nichol on tiebreak. Nick Charles/Juliet Kingsnorth were new faces to break into the top ten with a ninth overall. Andrew and Eve Hartley from Ripon won the silver division whilst Gerald and Martin from Budworth won the Bronze division. It had been a great weekend, even the worst service in a curry house ever and Paul Goodwin some how managing to spend six trying to drive out of Wales caused much amusement.