Onshore fun

Sailing at the Fat Face Night Sail was called off

The inaugural Fat Face Night Sail on Saturday (5 July) in Plymouth was greeted with gusts of 60 mph winds making it impossible to run the event, as was originally intended.
However, not wishing to send over 100 sailors home who had made the pilgrimage to Plymouth from all over the UK, including Scotland, and never to be outdone by the Great British weather, Fat Face took the decision that it would use the facilities at The Mount Batten Centre to run a massive inter team championship.

In total, seven of the dinghy sailing classes (B14, Laser Radials, RS200, Laser 4000, RS Fevas, RS400 and the 29ers) braved the weather warnings to turn up to the event and a series of on and off water activities were held.

The B14 Class were awarded the Fat Face Night Sail Champions, taking £500 prize money. Second on the podium was the Laser Radials who took their share with £300 and Laser 4000 in third who were awarded £200.

The day’s activities started just after lunch on Saturday in a huge tug-o-war, with the lighter classes not fairing as well and being pulled across a soggy field at the top of The Mount Batten centre. The knock-out finals ended up with the B14 Class taking on the Laser 4000s with the B14s winning.

Next was a huge Welly Wanging competition, which, as random as it may sound, is not as easy as it sounds! The official line of judging concluded that in actual fact the RS Class were rubbish at this activity, the Fevars fairing better and the Laser 4000 class taking the crown.

The last land based activity consisted of coordinating walking on a series of planks, connected with ropes, around a number of obstacles. Again it was the Laser 4000 Class which snatched top place.

With the wind still building it was time to take to the water! The next race, entitled ‘Fun Boat Fetch’ consisted of putting as many of the class as possible onto a yellow plastic catamaran and heading out onto the race course. Here, the event organisers released a number of plastic balls for the sailors to pick up.

The Laser Radials were able to catch up on points in this race and proved to be a force to reckoned with, partly by cheating and taking the bungs out of the other boats so they could paddle faster around the buoy to get to the finish line!

The very last contest of the day was the Downwind Challenge, where the boat crews acted as human masts, holding out Fat Face flags to traverse down the course. They then rowed themselves around the mark and paddled back to the thunderous applause of the assembled crowd.

It came down to an exceptionally close finish with the Radials beating the Laser 4000 class by just two foot! The B14s came in fourth place but they’d done enough on land to secure their first place position overall!

The end of the day finished with a huge party at The Mount Batten Centre, complete with a band, Beats Working, who had also braved the weather to travel from Surrey to perform! A mention also to Jägermeister who helped get the party well underway, as sponsors of the Fat Face Night Series.