RS Feva Inland Championship at Draycote Water Sailing Club

Mark and Alex during the RS Feva Inlands at Draycote Water © Steve Angell

Sunny and warm conditions greeted 31 keen young Feva sailors from across the country for the last of the 2021/22 Grand Prix series, also counting as the Inland Championships for 2022.

Unfortunately, the wind hadn't read the same script, and despite being warm and sunny, the whole weekend saw consistent strong winds with frequent gusts into the high 20s.

These conditions quickly split the fleet into those that loved the conditions and had the experience to really let the boat fly, and those that were just happy to get around the race course relatively dry.

RS Feva Inlands at Draycote Water - photo © Steve Angell

Race officer Matt Rowe had looked at the worsening weather forecast and decided to get 5 races in on day 1 using a simple windward / leeward course, with a further 3 on Sunday, this meant it was going to be a long hard first day for the sailors. Despite this all the sailors did a great job of sticking it out through most of the day, although the use of a spreader mark on the windward mark did catch a number of sailors out in the first race.

Freddie and Stella during the RS Feva Inlands at Draycote Water - photo © Steve Angell

The overall results for the weekend were dominated by 2 boats with Freddie Sunderland & Stella Nygard (Draycote Water SC) just getting the better overall over Katie and Bob Byne (Draycote Water SC), with these 2 between them accounting for 7 race wins out of the 8. On the Sunday in the slightly stronger winds Freddie and Stella showed the rest of the fleet how to really get a Feva to fly downwind with 3 straight wins.

Katie and Bob during the RS Feva Inlands at Draycote Water - photo © Steve Angell

In a close battle for third Maya Bergman Smith and Emilia Ripley (Hayling Island SC) just got ahead of Mark Jenkins Jauma and Alex Sydenham (Royal Lymington YC / HISC) for 3rd and 4th respectively. Hot on their heels were Imogen Green and Felicity Angell (Draycote Water SC) for 5th and Samuel and Isabelle Tonks (HISC) for 6th.

Mya & Emilia during the RS Feva Inlands at Draycote Water - photo © Steve Angell

In the overall series prizes, where consistency pays dividends the story was similar, with three of the top five from the Inlands taking the overall, but in quite a different order. Mark Jenkins Jauma and Alex Sydenham took the series overall by never having to count an overall round worse than 3rd, and only 1 point behind overall was Maya Bergman Smith and Emilia Ripley. 3rd place could have gone to any one of 4 boats leading into the final round, but was taken by Imogen Green and Felicity Angell.

Overall Results: