RS700s at Eastbourne

Dave Geal reports on the weekend action

Eastbourne Sovereign SC hosted the last RS700 Fat Face RS open sea event over the weekend of the 13/14th of September. A small but very competitive fleet of 8 boats took part and some excellent close racing was enjoyed by all competitors in a light south easterly breeze.

Race one got away bang on time. Leigh Albrecht served notice of what was going to happen for the whole event and won the first race in light marginal trapezing conditions followed by Jon Emmett and Andy Irons in 3rd spot.

Race 2 started in almost identical conditions, Andy Irons did well to win the second race Jon Emmett showing good consistency in 2nd and Leigh following up with a 3rd.
Race 3 started in much less wind, sub trapezing, the fleet were quite tightly packed together, once again Andy was able to get his bow in front and kept between the fleet and the marks, Jon popped in another 2nd and Leigh again finished 3rd. The fleet then went ashore with Andy as the overnight leader.

Sundays racing again started on time in slightly more wind from the southeast and brilliant sunshine. Good downwind speed and technique were to prove crucial to the outcome of this event. The racing was very close with the whole fleet only a few seconds apart. Leigh showed good downwind speed and won with Tony Freer carving his way to 2nd and Alex Koukourakis from the home club finishing 3rd.
With the points gap narrowing between Andy and Leigh the next 2 races were to prove pivotal. After a clean start the fleet split, the ones on the left did a little better.
Leigh got ahead down wind and notched up his 3rd win with Andy 2nd and Tony 3rd.

The all important last race got away without incident, The 2 local helms of Alex Koukourakis and Dave Geal made the most of the left hand side of the course and rounded 1st and 2nd leaving Andy and Leigh with some work to do. At the half way stage Alex still had the lead but was being closed down very quickly by Leigh. A couple of gybes later Leigh had gained the lead and went onto win the last race and the meeting with Andy second putting him in 2nd place overall. Alex did not slip any further and finished 3rd.Jon Emmett did just enough to get 3rd overall.

With the series now complete it was notable how well the racing had been run with no delays between races and the Race officer Peter Dives got every race away on time.
The fleet will now move onto Rutland Water for the penultimate event of the calendar the Inland Championships. Will the new faces at the front put in a good performance again? Watch this space.

	Crew							Total
1	Leigh Albrecht	1	3	3	1	1	1	7
2	Andy Irons	3	1	1	5	2	2	9
3	Jon Emmett	2	2	2	6	7	6	18
4	Alex Koukourakis	8	4	5	3	4	3	19
5	Tony Freer	5	5	DNC	2	3	DNF	23
6	Dave Geal	7	7	6	4	5	4	26
7	Eddie Gatehouse	6	6	4	7	6	5	27
8	Jerry Wales	4	8	DNF	DNC	DNC	DNC	36