Stewart and Ross win Nationals

Graham Camm reports from the National 12 racing in Weymouth

The National 12 championships were held at Castle Cove sailing club in Weymouth from 15-20 August. The fleet was blessed with strong winds for the whole week and seven out of the eight races scheduled were sailed despite warnings of gales.

Last year’s winners Tom Stewart & Liz Ross had a strong start to the week winning the first three races but their run was broken on Tuesday by Richard Williams & Lindsey Iles who won the premier race of the week, the Burton Cup.

The second half of the week was dominated by Steve Sallis & Jenny James who won the final three races. Points in the top ten were tight with only five points separating third place from ninth place going into the final day, which made for nail-biting racing.

Third and fourth places were taken by strong wind specialists Jon Brown & Rachel Williamson and John & Katy Meadowcroft. Both sailed consistently well during the week, finishing on equal points.

Last year’s runners up Graham Camm & Zoë Ballantyne, usually light wind specialists, showed good speed in the windy stuff in their new boat to finish fifth. Will Henderson returned to Burton week after a break of several years with son Arthur. With only 16 stone in the boat they showed incredible downwind speed and claimed 6th place overall.

Racing in the Admiral’s Cup fleet (for non-self draining boats) was again hotly contested. Tim Laws & Simon Hemingway had a fantastic result on day 1 claiming a 10th and the job of pathfinder on the Monday. Graham Iles & Emma Wilkins were first in the Burton Cup race and won the Beeston Goblet. Relative newcomers to the fleet Nick Charles & Juliet Kingsnorth put in some good results in the high twenties towards the end of the week to take second place.

Socials and nightly prize givings were sponsored by GILL, Pinnel and Bax and Sailpower. Aardvark Technologies sponsored a coaching session which was run by Mark Rushall early in the week. The nine newcomers to the championships benefited from some tips about big fleet tactics which were useful for the rest of the week, and the whole fleet turned up for the debrief, with tactical discussions continuing late into the evening.

Overall results

Pos	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Tot
1	Tom Stewart	Liz Ross	1	1	1	8	4	3	2	8
2	Steve Sallis	Jenny James	12	4	10	6	1	1	1	13
3	Jon Brown	Rachel Williamson	6	3	4	2	10	4	7	19
4	John Meadowcroft	Katy Meadowcroft	29	2	5	11	3	5	4	19
5	Graham Camm	Zoe Ballantyne	5	10	6	5	8	2	5	23
6	Will Henderson	Arthur Henderson	2	21	2	3	7	10	14	24
7	Richard Williams	Lindsey Iles	7	7	11	1	6	12	6	27
8	Jon Ibbotson	Charlotte Ibbotson	18	5	3	9	9	9	3	29
9	Ian Gore	Alex Gore	8	12	12	4	11	6	11	40
10	Steve Adshead	Henry Johnson	34	9	8	10	5	13	10	42