RS200 Northern Tour at Ullswater Yacht Club

The second event of the 2017 RS Sailing sponsored RS200 Northern Tour took place over the weekend of Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th April as part of the Ullswater YC Easter Regatta.

Saturday proved more than a little exciting with a gusty West South Westerly wind that blew anything from a F4 to the top end of a F7. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough the tough get going and it was Ollie Groves & Esther Parkhurst who proved the toughest of the bunch taking three straight wins from the Saturday races.

In the first race, Ollie and Esther won with Martin & Sian Joesbury with Keith Escritt & Andrea Clough in third.

In the second race, Ollie & Esther won again from Alistair & Charlotte Scott in second and Martin & Tom Penty in third.

Ollie & Esther also took first in the third race to prove their mastery of the conditions. Sam & Tim Waller were second and Martin & Tom Penty

The fleet went off to lick their wounds overnight knowing that the forecast was for lighter winds on the Sunday.

Four races were sailed on Sunday with two races back to back, then in for a quick lunch and then back out for the final two races.

Things looked hopeful as the fleet sailed out for race 4 in a steady F2, however that proved short lived.

The fourth race proved an absolute drifter and it was a question of who could spot the zephyrs the best and this proved to be Alistair & Tom Coates in the oldest boat in the fleet. Second was Martin & Tom Penty and third was Alistair & Charlotte Scott.

Fortunately, the wind filled in after the race and the remaining races were sailed in a F2-3 albeit with big holes in the wind.

Race 5 was won by Ollie & Esther with Martin & Sian second and Sam and Tim in third.

Race 6 was won by Ollie & Esther, which gave them the overall victory. Second was Henry Rastrick & Lucy Ferguson and third was Sam & Tim.

Although Ollie & Esther had won the even with a dominant display of five first places, it was still all to fight for the remaining podium places with three boats fighting it out for the two remaining slots.

Sam & Tim sealed second place overall by taking a fine win in race 7 from Ollie & Esther with Keith & Andrea in third.

Martin & Tom had done sufficiently well in the first five races to take third place overall.

Additional sponsorship was provided by Ian Turnbull in the form of Rope4Boats vouchers which were raffled off to all entrants. The raffle winners the two home boats of George Pullman & Sophie Cogger and Mark & Olivia Simpson.

Many thanks to Ullswater YC for hosting the event and to Jon Abbatt and his race team for providing some excellent racing.

Overall Results: