Latest News;
2023 Season Pre-View
2022 was a pretty successful season. After a gruelling 10 race campaign from Scotland to the Southwest I was rewarded with 4th Overall in the RS400 National Tour standings behind arch rival and great friend Matt Sheehan and daughter Ellie also from Warsash Sailing Club. The season culminated with the Inland championships at Grafham Water with super crew Geoff Camm where we put in some performances that lead the entire National fleet at times (see pictures above)
Looking forward to 2023 I have a new crew Chris Rolfe and with some training over the winter and WSC Winter series races I am hoping to once again mix it with the best of the RS400 National Fleet. The highlight of the 2023 season will be The 5 Day National Championships at Mounts Bay. We last visited the Mount in 2017. Mounts bay is an wonderful venue and has everything, wind, epic waves, wonderful views a great social and even dolphins. The 2023 season looks to be one of the best ever and will visit the following venues;
25-26th March RYA Dinghy Show
12th March Queen Mary Southern Tour
24th & 25th June Hayling National & Southern Tour + Summer Ball
8th & 9th July Arun Southern Tour
31st - 4th August National Mounts Bay. National Tour
30th - 1st October Inlands at Grafham. National Tour
21st - 22nd October Island Barn
4th & 5th November EOS Rutland Water
Video from our last trip to mounts bay.
Chichester Season Opener:
With a steady breeze of 17 kts and gusts of between 25 & 30 Kts this really was a season opener to blow the winter cobwebs away. 22 boats had entered and with the breeze building as we left shore there was some trepidation in the boat particularly with capsizes before we even launched. CYC did an amazing job of getting off three quality races and with almost the whole fleet having a swim at some stage of the event I am delighted to say Paul and I stayed dry. We eventually finished 17th a result we are delighted with given that we had not sailed in three months due to terrible winter weather. We are now off to Rutland water for the 2022 sprints that will put both Crew and helm through their paces. 12 short races of two days. Bring it on.......
For a race report from Chichester click here..... https://www.rs400.org/index.asp?fleet=RS400&pg=results-detail&evid=3959
2021 Season All Wrapped up.
2021 turned out to be a difficult season both in terms of the most unusual weather conditions and trying to manage both a National Sailing and Motor racing campaign.
The highs of course are the launch and successful racing of the new boat which is still amazing, the lows were days lost at our National Championships at South Shields in August.
The definitive highpoint of the year was the End of Season Championships were I was able to demonstrate that I can put in a great performance with a top 5 race finish and a best overall regatta finish of 6th in very challenging conditions and a nice write up in Yachts & Yachting
RS400 1520 Ready for Launch & Shakedown Trails:
20/07/2021: RS400 will be launched ahead of the 2021 Nationals. The fit out had going well and thanks to Zest Racing the boat id perfectly finished and aligned.
Andy Powell Dinghy Sailing places order for new RS400 racing boat for the 2021 Nationals.
The boat is a first for RS sailing as its been sold as a bare hull only for customer outfitting and we are super excited to be the first.
Watch progress of the fit Out her.
Next Race will be Warsash Sailing club on the 19th & 20Th June Followed by Torbay Summer Championships before a short brake to finish the new boat before The Nationals in August
2021 Race !
The first race of the delayed RS400 championship season took place at Chichester Yacht Club on the 10th April. The event run over 3 races and an 18 strong entry including multiple National Champions provided great racing through the fleet.
The gusty shifty conditions proved a challenge for even the most experienced sailors but for myself and crew Paul they proved particularly challenging.
For now we will be concentrating on Wednesday and Friday night club racing at Warsash, coaching at the end of the month and training in preparation for our Home championship event at Warsash in June. For now though it was great just being at a fleet race event with all our wonderful RS400 friends.
See you all at Warsash in June.
