The RS 100 Sprint Championships were again held at Rutland Sailing Club, with a forcast of fresh winds for the 6 races on Saturday 10th and much more on Sunday. This forcast was enough to produce some excellent excusses not to sail, including "the car had a flat tyre", "I am to old to enjoy swimming" and the best one made after rigging the boat and getting changed "I left my rudder at home".

So six out of the ten 100s entered set of to the start line in F5 gusting 6 and race 1 got under way Giles Chipperfield capsizing on his first tack off the line ("The booms much lower than the D-one").  The big unit of Huw Powell powered away to lead from start to finish with Mark Harrison over taking Greg Booth just yards from the finish line followed by David Smart and Clive Eplett with Giles not finishing after another prolonged capsize.

In the second Huw once again set off like a rocket and led round the course but missed out the last bouy handing the race to Mark with Greg having his only swim of the day which allowed the upright Giles to take second.  Clive was struggling with the conditions and went ashore quoting from his book,  "it has taken man 5 million years of evolution to live on land rather than the sea and I am not going to reverse  this process".

Mark continued to ride his luck by leading race 3 from start to finish with Greg taking second from Huw who recovered from a rubbish first beat to finish third followed by Giles and David.

On the first beat of race 4 a big left shift meant that Huw and Giles reached into the first mark  rounding well ahead of the others, leaving Huw to go on to win, but Mark managed to reel Giles in upwind "because of, to quote from Giles " his superior pie eating abilities". David at this point excusses himself from the fun citing a broken up main sheet block, but Giles, later in the pub, was sure the real reason for Davids retirement was that he had beaten David in the two previous races.
Race 5 saw Huw using his hiking technique "sit on the side and allow mass to do the work for you" storm off to an unassailable lead with Greg profiting from Marks capsize (which saw, when his boat was on its side the spinnaker fill and lift the bow up until the hull was vertical before being dropped back again) to finish second followed by Gilles and a rather bemused Mark
In the "thank God its the last race" Marks boat again took off as he led round the first 2 marks but Huw managed  to get past at the bottom of the first run,  but again Huws lack of upwind boat speed (his new slot gasket was hanging off) allowed Mark to pass for a win with Greg finishing just in front of Giles.

The forcast for Sunday was looking grim, but those who looked out at 8am on Sunday were supprised to see a gentle force 3 but an hour later this had risen to F5 and at 10am with a steady F6 gusting 7 and a forcast of more to come the RO abandoned  racing much to the relief of the aching sailors.  This left Mark beating Huw, as there are no discards, with Greg  third and Giles wondering why he broke his rule of only sailing in warm water.

A big thank you to the race and rescue crews at Rutland SC who once again supplied great racing.

The next event is Posh in 4 weeks time and for those like Giles who like warmer weather there is Carnac at the end of May.