Results / Inland Championships Queen Mary SC - 23/10/2010

The inaugural RS100 Inlands took place over the weekend 23/24 October at Queen Mary alongside the RS800’s. The forecast for 12 knots of breeze with some big gusts proved to be on the money.

Saturday proved to be the windier day. After a delay launching due to the onshore winds, most people were on the course to start the outer loop course in a solid force 3. Half way through the race a huge squall with rain and hailstones came through and with the wind gusting F5-6 and little visibility, it turned out the race was abandoned, much to the disappointment of those that continued the 4 laps and only found out as they sailed to the committee boat to finish. Mark Harrison (8.4) leading was the major casualty, while Paul Childs having given up after a swim in the squall the beneficiary!

Race 2 got underway in a softer F2-3, the beats proved fairly shifty, but Paul Childs (10.2) managed to establish a big enough lead on the top reach to stay clear of the fleet just ahead of National Champ Neal Freeman (8.4), Chris Larr (8.4) bagged 3^rd.

Race 3 started with half the fleet in irons going backwards in a raft. Paul Childs and Neal Freeman again showed their class followed home this time by Simon Childs (10.2) and Hywel Roberts (8.4).

Sunday and the racing switched to the other half of the reservoir, with the wind dropping to Force 2, the course was much narrower leading to a few scary moments with the 800 and 100 fleets overlapping up and downwind.

Race 4 saw Hywel Roberts and Clive Eplett (8.4) get a shifty first beat right ( well left actually) and subsequently lots of place changes behind Hywel. Chris Cunningham (10.2) found some form to finish 2^nd with Freeman 3^rd and Eplett 4^th.

Race 5 saw Paul Childs return to the front, with Freeman OCS Simon Childs grabbed 2^nd Hywel Roberts 3^rd and Sam Vaughan (10.2) 4^th.

With the event just about wrapped up, Paul Childs nailed the pin for Race 6 and disappeared to another easy win. With Neal Freeman a comfortable second these two had wrapped up the individual fleet victories. In the pack racing was really close. Having led at the windward mark a brief swim by Simon Childs kept the fleet amused and pushed him down the fleet, while Mark Harrison managed a 3^rd