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West Country Boat Repairs SW Ugly Tour at Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club

by James Williams 22 Oct 02:37 NZDT 19 October 2024
RS200 West Country Boat Repairs SW Ugly Tour at Chew Valley Lake © Gus Cameron

Chew Valley Lake SC played host to the final event in the 2024 RS200 South West Ugly Tour (kindly sponsored by West Country Boat Repairs) on a surprisingly warm October Saturday, just squeezing in ahead of the arrival of Storm Ashley.

I write this looking out over the lake the day after the event, with 30 knots gusts and increasingly heavy rain giving as much of a contrast to the glorious sunshine and F3-4 of Saturday that you could imagine in a 24 hour period.

Forgive me for not recounting all the details of each race, but such were the nuances of the conditions and closely matched fleet that every ounce of brain power was dedicated to staying in the pressure and finding the right shifts, not leaving much for remembering what actually happened. What I can recall / deduce is as follows:

R1 started in 10-12 knots from the west, which probably averaged out as the mean strength and direction over the day. The line had a bit of boat bias and unsurprisingly the fleet was a little punchy. Some were disappointed to only hear 2 hoots at the gun rather than the 3 needed for another attempt. A good handful of boats came back to restart correctly, including at least 3 from the gold fleet. Unexpectedly the breeze kicked in enough to properly heat things up downwind, the further right you went in to the SE corner of the lake, the more you gained. Chris / Katherine Martin (1728) and Chris Catt / Roz McGrane (1603) came across from the EaSEA circuit to connect the dots and finish first and second.

R2 this time a pin bias and the leaders came from the middle-left. Biggest gains were from taking the port hand rounding of the leeward gate and heading right on the 3rd beat to find a lovely right-hand shift. Chris / Roz and Chris / Katherine once again showed us the way around.

R3 was probably the lightest of the day with the occasional perching upwind giving the toe straps a break. Finally, there was the general recall the fleet had been pushing for following a further right hand shift in sequence. After quickly resetting the course, the next attempt had a lovely square line and the ensuing drag race to get noses in front to the first shift. From where I was sat, I took 2 things away: John Teague / Naomi Pound (1365) manage to sail upwind with the boat bolt upright all the time (evidently this is fast), and Ben / Keira McGrane (1319) had a leech profile on their main that just looked perfect and also seemed to point 5 degrees higher than everyone else (evidently this is also very fast). These two showed the fleet a clean pair of heels.

R4 and the line got more and more pin biased in the final minute that it became as much about getting on to port as quickly as possible than actually winning the pin end. The breeze continued to go left up the first beat, with Peter Loretto / Kelly Aaron (1741), Ed Jones/ Ruth Law (463) and Nick Martindale / Christi Brasher (960) noticeably getting their noses in front early on. Ben / Keira once again worked their magic in the shiftiest race of the day to come through and finish ahead of all 3.

In the absence of lots of race specific detail I'll try to summarise:

  • Race Officers Ian Cadwallader and Bill Chard (& race team) make the on-water management slicker and slicker at this event every year. Last boat finishing to next Warning Signal was usually a minute or so and they took every opportunity to square the courses up. Chapeau.
  • No one was consistently at the front all day. In fact, this felt like the closest the fleet has been at Chew for a long time and you could easily gain or lose half a dozen places on one leg by hooking in to the right puff / shift
  • "There were plenty of places to be gained downwind today" - a reminder that the shifts and puffs count just as much going downhill as up, but are just harder to spot
  • We are so lucky on the SW circuit to have a really diverse range of amazing clubs to visit. We had to lay on the best October sunshine I can remember at Chew for a long while to keep up with events earlier this season.
  • Results are largely irrelevant when a table of cake appears after racing.
With the top 4 separated by just 3 points by the end Burghfield's Chris / Katharine made the most of the first 2 races to win overall, ahead of Netley's Chris / Roz on countback. Peter / Kelly's amazing last race secured them the silver fleet and John / Georgie Warburton's (1259) rapid improvement at Chew this year gave them the Bronze fleet title.

Roll on the 2025 Ugly Tour!

A full selection of photos courtesy of Gus Cameron can be found on Flickr.

Overall Results:

PosDivisionSail NoHelmCrewClubR1R2R3R4Pts
1stGold1728Chris MartinKatharine MartinBurghfield12(14)710
2ndGold1603Chris CattRoz McGraneNetley SC217(9)10
3rdGold1365John TeagueNaomi PoundBCYC(8)51511
4thGold1319Ben McGraneKeira McGraneNetley SC9(14)2112
5thGold418Fred MainwaringLiz MainwaringExe SC4(6)5615
6thGold1019James WilliamsJohn SpelmanCVLSC673(10)16
7thGold1466David SweetDerian ScottCVLSC548(11)17
8thGold960Nick MartindaleChristi BrasherChew(16)134219
9thGold1289Cliff MillinerBec MillinerCotswold SC3126(13)21
10thGold1740Mark OakeyJess OakeyCardiff Bay(14)313824
11thSilver1741Peter LorettoKelly AaronParkstone YC(13)1110324
12thSilver594Kyle BrownMadeline StrugnellRestronguet SC111011(16)32
13thSilver463Edward JonesRuth LawQueen Mary Sailing Club21(22)9434
14thSilver1452Alistair HodgsonElla SpainDraycote Water Sailing Club109(17)1534
15thSilver541Milly TregaskesTaryn BanksRestronguet SC(18)8151437
16thSilver322Freya BrownJess PattersonRestronguet SC151612(18)43
17thBronze1259John WarburtonGeorgie WarburtonCVLSC121716(DNC)45
18thSilver1551Izzy CrampStuart JonesHooe Point SC720(22)1946
19thSilver1609Rose HallamDan BriggRestronguet SC(19)19191250
20thSilver914Reuben WoodbridgeJoanna WoodbridgeCVLSC(20)15181750
21stBronze288Chris HawleyStephen LemmonBartley / Littleton1718(21)2156
22ndBronze247Sebastian EdwardsNick CliffordCVLSC(DNF)23202063
23rdBronze1444Pete AlveyMark EylesCVLSC2221(23)2265
24thBronze1516Martyn StubbsYvonne SmithCVLSC23(24)242370

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