Gul RS300 Grand Prix at Brightlingsea Sailing Club

Brightlingsea Sailing Club played host to round 4 of the GUL Grand Prix on July 2nd & 3rd 2011. A slightly depleted fleet, probably due to the weather forecasts failing to note that coastal regions get a sea breeze on warm summer days, launched into sunshine and a light but building F2 sea breeze.

Mike "The Local" Bees was quick out of the blocks in Race 1, and gradually extended to take a comfortable win. Behind, the battle raged for second place for the whole race - early second place man Chris "I'm so slow if it's not hiking conditions" Hart fell back into the clutches of Rich "The Power" Le Mare, Al "AWACCS" (not that's not an early warning system) Wood and Mark "Too young for a nickname yet" Peak for a while, but experienced a late race rennaissance to take second ahead of Le Mare and Wood.

Into race 2 and the breeze was starting to freshen nicely. Again Bees ran off and hid. Mid-way through the race the wind hit F3, which with wall-to-wall sunshine and a nice chop kicked up by the ebbing tide made for wonderful conditions. A battle royal between Le Mare, Wood, and Tom "Don't call me Bash 'em All" Bashemall (oops) resulted in all 3 crossing the finish line within a couple of seconds - Le Mare mugging the others to take second, from Wood.

For race 3 it was full hiking conditions, even for Le Mare (just), and a challenging sea state. Le Mare pushed Bees all the way until, with the time-honoured 300 sailor's cry of anguish followed immediately by a loud splash, he unexpectedly stopped to wash his sail on the first run. This left a relieved Bees to relax and go on take the 3rd win of the day, followed by a slightly dampened Le Mare. Steve "Specs" Dewberry proved the old maxim that "If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all" as he was capsized by a trespassing GP14 on the start line with seconds to go to the start, and then hauled his way up to 3rd place by the last run to the finish only to (somewhat unfortunately given his profession) fail to spot the bright orange leeward mark and sail the wrong side of it to the finish line. This handed 3rd place to Wood. Ballingall had joined in with Dewberry's start line capsize to provide some entertainment for the Laser sailors as he kited away from the startline clinging from the gunwhale, half-upright with the boom in front of the mast and sail full.

After this excitement it was back to the club to sit on the beach and savour a cold beer in the sun, a plate of curry, and much later on some curious drinks which were apparently supposed to catch fire but didn't. That's what happens when students man the bar.

Sunday morning dawned windless, but after just over an hour's postponement the sea breeze slowly started to build. Race 4 started in a light F2, with the beat against a strong flooding tide making for something of a soldier's course. Le Mare thought otherwise and hit the wrong side hard, leaving him with plenty of work to do. Bees led all the way from Wood who kept the pressure on to the finish, with Le Mare recovering to 3rd. A slight freshening of the breeze for Race 5 again saw Bees sail off to a 5th successive bullet, followed by Le Mare and Wood. For the final race it was back to full hiking conditions and bright sunshine. Le Mare got his act fully together and led all the way, with Bees pushing hard on the downwind legs but dropping back again on the upwinds. They finished a few boatlengths apart.

Pictures from Saturday's racing are available for free download on flickr.

Event Video:

Many thanks to Geoff Gritton for driving the photo boat and Becky Ashworth for taking the pics.

With suntans all round, the 300 fleet would like to thank Brightlingsea Sailing Club, PRO Dave Gibbons and the whole team for a slickly run event.

Next up is the AWACCS RS 300 National Championship at Weymouth, as part of the RS Games - it's going to be a great event!

Overall Results: