Noble Marine Marlow Ropes RS200 National Championship - Fleets and Buddy Groups announced
by Sally Campbell 31 Jul 19:51 BST
5-9 August 2024
Noble Marine Marlow Ropes RS200 National Championship © Lee Whitehead / Photolounge
Time to find out who is good, bad and ugly!
With the Noble Marine Marlow Ropes RS200 National Championships at Mount's Bay Sailing Club just days away, the much-anticipated fleets allocation and buddy groups have been announced.
The list [PDF] is viewable at www.rs200sailing.org/documents/p1i4497nmrs8buj7ikrjmu19ah3.pdf
Class Chair, Will Taylor explains, "At the Nationals, we put every boat into a Buddy Group, which contains a Gold Fleet, Silver Fleet and Bronze Fleet boat. Once sailors arrive at Mounts Bay they will be given a designated boat parking space next to their buddies. This aims to make it easy to ask your buddies questions and share knowledge through the fleet.
This year the Buddy Groups have been named and carefully prepared with our Wild West theme in mind by our dedicated results rep Vic Upton, with help from fellow committee members.
As well as a buddy group, all sailors are given gold, silver or bronze feet status. The gold, silver and bronze fleets do not determine racing, everyone still races together, what they do is help spread prizes throughout the fleet with each boat only being allowed to win one prize during the week, so we advise everyone to make sure they come along to the daily prize-giving each evening."
Will adds, "Bonus points if you win the overall Buddy group prize and have your whole team up at the Championship prize-giving as the last two years there has been a boat missing!"
Marlow Rope's generous title sponsorship begins with Marlow Prosecco Monday - In Race 2 of the regatta, sailors will be racing for bottles of Prosecco or bars of chocolate. The top five teams in gold, silver and bronze fleets, and each boat in the top two Buddy groups from Race 2 will have a choice between a chocolate bar and bottle of Prosecco! Of course, any under 18s will have to take the chocolate!
Throughout the week, there will be daily prizes of Marlow 50m mini spools for the top boats in the gold, silver and bronze fleets, meaning that every sailor has a chance to win.
The buddy scheme really is an integral part of the National Championships, helping sailors get to know each other and improving standards overall as the better sailors help those with less experience progress.
Mounts Bay Sailing Club are very much looking forward to welcoming the fleet to their unique venue.
Event website: www.rs200sailing.org/championships/index.asp?pg=Home&eid=2487