Always keen to innovate, the RS300 Class ran its first ever slalom championship at Bristol Corinthian YC on 9 May. The wind was fruity and from the west. This, and the extremely compact course, heightened the ‘highdramaadrenalinepumpinghugegrinshortcoursepointandshootcrashandburnhopeandpray’ style of tack and gybe racing on offer.
What it was all about was this. Two parallel lines of four buoys 20m apart with each line 30-40m apart. Match race with each boat tacking up a line of buoys, crossing on the reach, a run back down, gybe and repeat, then finish. The 60m beats were taking about 40 seconds and the total race time around 3 minutes. No time to think, catch breath or get bored.
With two identical courses the competitors were split into two flights for the first series of round-robin racing. Course M(iliband) to the left hosted Richard Le Mare, Steve Bolland, Pete Ellis, Ben Green and Gary Morris. Course C(ameron) to the right was the playground for Tim Keen, Ross Davis, Martin Harrison, Stuart Hopson and Jeremy Carr.
On course M, Ellis did himself no favours by being OCS in three of his four races. In his final race the now renamed Premature Pete held all the aces against Le Mare until his final gybe robbed him of victory. As the imaginative SIs meant disqualification for a capsize his heartfelt cry of ‘noooooooooooo’ was echoed by many who were failing to rack up a score.
On Course C, meanwhile, despite a host of capsizes before the start Tim Keen was taking everything serenely, tacking upwind and down to record four bullets.
After a total of 20 races, 4 for each competitor, it was in for lunch and a look to see what the league tables looked like for the split into gold and silver flights for the afternoon’s racing. Top of the tree at this stage was Keen followed by Le Mare, Davis and Bolland who went into gold, the others into silver, including Premature Pete. If only he’d held it together for one more gybe in the morning’s round…
A course tweak and slightly less wind saw more racing and less surviving for the afternoon’s races. The top 4 went onto course C with everyone racing the other competitors twice to decide the semi-final pairings. Keen started off well but Bolland came top to book a semi-final against Davis; Keen playing Le Mare.
Meanwhile, on course M, Ellis and Harrison were both putting in strong performances ahead of Hopson and Green. Final standings were decided by a one race shootout – league positions 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, 5th v 6th. Ellis defeated Harrison to hang on to 5th place overall (behind the semi-finalists on course C). However, in a last minute turnaround Green beat Hopson to leapfrog him into 7th.
Back on course C Bolland received a bye into the final after Davis retired hurt. The other semi between Keen and Le Mare was a humdinger until Le Mare had a major wipeout on the final downwind to hand Keen the win.
And so to the final, Keen v Bolland in a double-length race – 16 tacks and 4 gybes in 5 minutes of racing. Bolland held a slight lead after lap 1 but Keen closed right back on the second beat as Bolland’s normal smoothness left him completely. It came back after he gave himself a serious talking to and he held a viable lead heading into the final stages. However, Keen put on the afterburners down the final 40m run with the result being… a dead heat!
A quick breather to recover and it was into the replay. Again Bolland held a slight advantage after the first lap but Keen pulled it back over the next two. Going into the final lap and it was anybody’s race but Keen put in a slightly better final set of four tacks and held on down the run to win by 3 seconds.
Ashore, everyone was full of praise both for the new racing format as well as the huge support given from the host club, the race teams led by John Teague and Chris Appleton and supported by the 2000 fleet. In all, nearly 50 races were run with minimal turnarounds and hiccups. The event being held in Somerset, prizes consisted of local cheese and scrumpy. No glassware here.
Next stop is the Eurocup in Carnac in two weeks’ time followed by a return to the Magic Marine Grand Prix series at Parkstone on 20/21 June.
Report by Steve Bolland