Sailing Today
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The RS Vareo associations e-Newsletter - Issue 5
Contents Burghfield Fat Face April   Llandefedd Fat Face Open May   Tech Tweaks   Pear Shaped Corner   Calendar – Stokes Bay and Northampton   Looking forward to Gul Nationals in July Enjoy the 5th edition of RS Vareo Sailing Today. Gavin Clark RS Vareo Owners Club Comms Rep
April 2008 Fat Face Open Burghfield SC...
The first Fat Face open of the year saw 21 boats at Burghfield SC. 4 races were sailed in blustery shifty conditions with a hint of ice in the air. Race one got off to an enthusiastic start with Chris Larr and Richard Willows swapping places around the track. Some big shifts and gusts coming down the course saw several swimmers both up and down wind. Larr achieving his first Fat Face bullet of the season with Willows 2nd and Mark Williams 3rd. Race two and a lighter breeze saw Willows scamper off into the distance being chased by Nigel Tinkler, Junior and J Symons. Willows was forced to cover his attackers and saw his lead drop to just half a boat length at the finish with Tinkler and Symons both sniffing his transom. Willows was wearing the Yellow Jersey at the halfway stage but the wind was building over lunch. M Peters found perseverance pays by not flying the kite in the strong winds. He passed many swimmers on the trip down wind. Larr proved his superior heavy air sailing by pulling two bullets out of the bag in the afternoon cementing his 1st open win with an on form Willows in 2nd and Team Wales represented by Williams in 3rd overall.
RESULTS: 1st   361   Chris Larr Northampton SC 1 (8) 1 1 11 3 2nd   244   Richard Willows Northampton 2 1 (7) 4 14 7 3rd   483   Mark Williams   3 (7) 2 3 15 8 4th   484   Nigel Tinkler Llandegfedd SC 5 2 (23 DNC) 8 38 15 5th   294   Chris Jordan Burghfield SC 4 (23 DNF) 11 2 40 17 6th   5   Junior Calshot 8 4 (12) 6 30 18 7th   334   Nick Crickmore Waveney & Oulton Broad 6 (11) 5 7 29 18 8th   340   Chris Romani Portishead (10) 6 6 9 31 21 9th   166   Adrian Theal West Riding SC 9 12 3 (23 DNF) 47 24 10th   402   Scott Butler Hardway SC 14 (17) 8 5 44 27 11th   262   Jeremy Symons Llandegfedd SC (23 DNC) 3 4 23 DNF 53 30 12th   322   Mark Hayzelden Burghfield SC 12 10 10 (23 DNC) 55 32 13th   354   Martin Barrett Ripon SC 7 5 (23 DNC) 23 DNC 58 35 14th   261   Martyn Peters Llandegfedd SC (15) 13 14 10 52 37 15th   532   Kevin Jones HISC 13 15 (23 DNF) 11 62 39 16th   391   Not Known   11 9 (23 DNF) 23 DNC 66 43 17th   156   Steven Trigg Burghfield SC 17 14 15 (23 DNC) 69 46 18th   148   Robert Norris HCSSC 19 20 9 (23 DNC) 71 48 19th   477   James Hamilton Bury Lake 18 19 13 (23 DNC) 73 50 20th   133   Neville Champion Bristol Corinthian YC 16 18 16 (23 DNF) 73 50 21st   243   Gavin Clark Swanage SC (23 DNF) 16 23 DNF 23 DNC 85 62 22nd   381   John Regan Llandegfedd SC (23 DNC) 23 DNC 23 DNC 23 DNC 92 69
RS Vareo Fat Face Open Meeting at Llandegfedd SC. 17th and 18th May 2008... For the second year running sailors from the South of England and Wales enjoyed a great weekend’s sailing at Llandegfedd, which boasts the UK’s largest Vareo fleet. On Saturday the winds were light to moderate but allowed for some very close racing with places changing regularly. Whilst in all three races Nigel Tinkler was first, Richard Willows second and Mark Williams third, these results are misleading as in reality 5 or 6 boats were regularly pushing for the top spots. Sunday featured a Moderate breeze, gusting to F4, and superb racing conditions. A battle for the top spot developed between Nigel and Richard both of whom were sailing very well. Richard though had the better of Sunday. Mark often had to recover from a dire first beat with John Regan typically going through the fleet the other way after an exceptionally quick first lap. A very competitive mid field exploited any mistakes. John though sailed a superb final race to come in just behind Richard, who won the race. Richard and Nigel both sailed extremely well and ended up on identical points with Nigel just stealing the event by count-back. Mark was third, Jeremy Symonds forth and John was fifth. The event was slickly managed by the race team with minimal delays and good race length and the competitors once again enjoyed exhilarating downwind legs, where the Vareo excels, together with exceptionally close one design class racing.
Tech Tweaks… Since switching to string at the bottom of the shrouds I and others have noticed that the Dyneema has started to fray due to contact with the relatively sharp lip on the eye. A simple but very worthwhile fix is to fit a smooth shackle which is much kinder to the string. See below. Junior informed me a while ago – and it has just been confirmed via RS Fast News that new Vareos will have a kinder fitting attached to the hull to cope with this. In the meantime, see below the simple fix, with further below in comparison the original photo from the previous RS Sailing Today.
Pear Shaped Corner... A major exciting factor about the RS Vareo is its capacity to deliver a truly enthralling and stunning performance – always of course conditional on the assumption that the skipper happens to have a stunning ability which is matched to the conditions prevailing and further that no surprises – natural or otherwise – occur to cause an unexpected interruption to stunning performance. See below a few fine examples from last year’s big blow day at the Nationals at Netley SC.
As you see 373 is having a ball but the guy in the background must have been totally awestruck by the tower in the background.
Ugh – oh …..it’s that tower again !
At the April Burghfield SC Fat Face Open I was involved in a corner of the lake which took a massive gust. About a third of the fleet had just turned the corner at the leeward mark and were hence in defence mode against such natural occurrences. There were four Vareos planing with kites pulling hard at as deep angle as was possible by the inherent wind strength. Suddenly 4 throttles got knocked from military thrust to afterburner and all skippers did the textbook bear off (suddenly being less intent of the direct route to the leeward mark) for stability reasons. All 3 in front of me capsized suddenly, laid out in a perfect slalom pattern. On full power I really really don’t recommend zig zags. Too much zig and an unwanted gybe – too much zag and the wind talks loudly to the kite. Unfortunately this was one of the above-mentioned combinations of natural with unnatural events so despite being able (somewhat flukily) manage a quick zag up – passing one, a zig down passing number 2, the second zag was way too much for the gust which had not yet eased, so very wet and cold broach was the end result. The fast boys at the front had a ringside seat – with probably sufficient “in-charge” to really appreciate that episode. That day had ice in the wind (the day after had 3 inches of snow on the Vareo in the driveway), and was one day I really regretted getting the wetsuit out too early in the season. This was in a way reminiscent of what I know can happen in mixed handicap racing – where at certain times the asymmetric boat when hit with a big gust needs to bear off but often has no right of way over other dinghies which do not have the same issues. This is of course yet another truly excellent reason for racing against other Vareos.
Calendar... Fat Face Open – Stokes bay SC June 14-15th Start Sat 12.30 An excellent chance to get a pretty near-to experience for the forthcoming Nationals. Conditions at SBSC are broadly similar to those at LOSSC so a great chance to literally test the water as a prep to the big one. Fat Face Open – Northampton SC Sept 6-7th Start Sat 13.00 A great central location so a good chance to get another weekend in between the Nationals and Inlands later that month at Rutland.
Looking Forward to RS Vareo National Championships 2008 Lee on Solent Sailing Club July 18-20...
Following last year’s highly successful Nationals at Netley SC we are moving down the Solent and turning left round the corner to Lee on Solent. This location shares the great accessibility that Netley did and should mean that getting there should be overall for most not a major problem with good M-way access almost to the club. RS Vareos are no strangers to LOSSC – we had an excellent Fat Face Open there last year and there have been previous visits. Website: http://www.lossc.co.uk/homepage2.htm  First Race is 13.00 Friday 18th July. Welcome from the club (as written by Stewart Aughey Sailing Sect LOSSC) : LOSSC are looking forward to the RS Vareos joining us again in what is our centenary year. We are particularly pleased to host them again and hope that we can provide as always good courses and, of course, fair wind. We are fortunate at LOSSC as we can sail at all states of the tide and, dare we say it, offer the best sailing on the Solent. Our club house has a well stocked range of ales and delicious food. There is ample room to rig boats on the grass as usual and a campsite is just down the road from the club.
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