RS400 Northern Tour 2024 Sponsored by Trident UK

Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman at GNAC © William Carruthers

For the second year running congratulations go to Chris Pickles and Matt Sharman (Bassenthwaite SC) for winning the 2024 RS400 Trident UK Northern Tour, though it was a close-run thing, and all top 6 positions were settled at the final event of the season.

Chris and Matt finished the season tied on 5 points with Ollie Groves and Ester Parkhurst (Beaver SC). Both teams had three first places and a second, so we had to dig deep into Appendix A of the racing rules of sailing to settle the series on the last event. It may have been a different story, but Ollie and Esther jumped into an RS200 for the last weekend of the series practising for the Endeavour Trophy. It was clearly worthwhile as they went on to win the Endeavour Trophy. Whilst they were representing the 2000 class, we all really know they're northern RS400 sailors. Huge congratulations guys!

Dave Exley and Nigel Hall - photo © Paul Hargreaves

Hamish Gledhill and Ross Southwell (West Riding SC) finished third, squeaking ahead of Dave Exley and Nigel Hall (Leigh and Lowton SC) in fourth. Louise McKeand and Sean Ratcliffe (Leigh and Lowton SC) climbed the leader board to finish 5th with Carl and son Ben Whitehead (Filey SC) finishing 6th overall..

Over the year the Trident UK Northern Tour has served up the full range of conditions, from strong winds and waves of biblical proportions at Filey, to a glassy lake at Notts County, not forgetting the squall that wiped out half the fleet at Carsington.

Louise McKeand and Sean Ratcliffe - photo © Paul Hargreaves

The overall numbers of boats competing on the northern tour has dropped slightly this year. It has been a trend across the country. However, we are seeing a few new faces in the fleet, so fingers crossed we'll see more boats out competing on the tout next year. The 62 boats that competed on the tour his year came from 23 different clubs. With Tynemouth SC providing the greatest number of boats (11), ahead of Yorkshire Dales (9), Notts County (8). Leigh and Lowton SC and Carsington SC were the other major contributing clubs with 6 boats each.

The tour finished strongly with the last event of the year at Bassenthwaite having the largest entry of the year with 20 boats, which matched the highest turnout from the 2023 tour.

Hamish Gledhill and Ross Southwell - photo © Paul Hargreaves

Looking forward, the calendar for next year's events have been confirmed and can be seen on the RS400 Class Association website.

You will see that the fleet is returning to Bala SC for the Northern Championships on 10/11 May. In past years Bala has put on great events and with the wind in the right direction you can experience some of the best inland sailing in the country. Let's hope we can get a great turnout for that.

We hope as many of you as possible can support the tour next year. If you have any suggestions or ideas for improving the tour, please contact the RS Association. If your club would like to host an event in 2026, please contact the RS Class Association so we have plenty of time to include your event within the calendar.

Finally, special thanks must go to Trident UK, who again generously supported the Tour this year by providing overall prizes for the Tour winners and vouchers presented at each event from a raffle. Please remember that you had to be present at the prize-giving to be eligible for the raffle prizes.

We look forward to seeing you on the water next year. The first event of the year is at Leigh and Lowton SC on 29th and 30th March - hopefully see you there!

RS400 Northern Tour 2024 Overall Results: