Last day cancelled

Light and shifty conditions dominated the end of the RS800 National Championship in Pwllheli this year

Day three of the GUL RS800 National Championships dawned rainy and still windy, but the promised forecast of sun and no wind soon set in. In a light offshore breeze, the RS800 fleet drifted a couple of miles downwind to sail four races.

The first race started with the promise of some wind, and even called for use of the trapeze off the start. This was about as exciting as it got all day, and shifting and dying winds called for the start line and marks to be moved, and start sequences to be canned.

At points, winds were light enough to require the crews to chill out in the 'play pen' on the bow, and the helms to cower in the bottom of the boat. God forbid that you should want to shift your leg to ease that muscle cramp - it would cost you boatlengths as all the wind was shaken out of the sail.

However, natural talent will out - despite each race threatening to turn itself inside out, Steve Irish and Martin Gotrel in Magic Marine managed to win three of the four races sailed. However, it seemed to be only the invincible Irish and Gotrel pairing who could manage such consistency. Chris Haworth and Stuart Aston had a mixed bag of results, ranging from second to eighteenth, and Justin Deal and Sarah Marriot triumphed with a first in the second race of the day, but also scored an eighteenth as their worst. Philip King and Christian King and Andrew Cornah and Orwin Murray showed a little more consistency with top ten results. Spod and Jane Olive also made their mark up there, but were unfortunately disqualified from the second race, which meant that they had to count a 12 in their overall results, meaning they went from third overall on discard to fifth.

Adrian Coatsworth and Julia Jenkins, the 'outsiders' who had gone into the day in fourth place, suffered from the lighter winds, and dropped in the overall results, but still deserve to be noticed for their sterling effort until then. Ian Martin and Claire Booth had a much better day in the light stuff - a lot of that must be attributable to the svelte and light-footed Claire's expert crewing.

Race four finished at about five o'clock, and at that point so did the wind. The very front markers caught the final zephyr to coast them ashore, but the majority of the fleet were left wallowing in glass-like seas two miles offshore. Rumour has it the rescue boat crews were enjoying a beer in the bar from this point, which was much more than can be said for those of us who resorted to removing tiller extensions to try and canoe in, and who finally beached after 7pm dehydrated, hungry and a might teed off. Becky Gardner, crew of no 1066 Willpower, was spotted stripping off outer layers, and diving into the water to swim home, towing the boat behind her.

Day three turned out to be the final day, as the wind didn't see fit to return to Pwllheli for us. Those of us who hadn't even bothered to change into damp, smelly kit, and who started packing up, felt very smug when racing was abandoned at 12.30pm. Steve Irish was probably pleased, as he notched up another national championship win, with Haworth and Aston in second, and Deal and Marriot in third. A very disappointing decision for the Olives, though, who desperately wanted another discard to allow them to make up for the DSQ which caused them to have to count a 12th. Although equal on points with Justin Deal, and with Philip King and Christian King who came fourth, on countback the Olives came off worst and settled for a fifth which doesn't really reflect how good and consistent they are.