Results / Easter Grand Slam Weston SC - 06/04/2012

An overcast sky�s and light winds greeted the RS700 fleet on the Plymouth leg of the Fat Face tour. The tides and shifty breeze combined with a bit of ship and RS800 dodging made Plymouth sound a testing place to sail on the first day. Andy White led race 1 only to be over taken by Tim Johnson down wind, a lead he held to the finish beating White by a boat length. Carl Vinning was 3rd followed by Steve Tylecote. Eddie Gatehouse followed by John Emmett, were the first to round the Windward mark in race 2, but by the Leeward mark White was in the lead. White continued to extend his lead to win by a hansom margin. With the RS700 fleet entangled with the back marker RS800�s who shared the same course, some large gains could be made on the final run, dodging these impressively slowly sailed boats. The biggest gain was made by Johnson who pulled through from 6th to 2nd by the finish, with Tylcote in 3rd. Race 3 saw Tylcote build a good lead early on, but by the last windward the chasing pack of Johnson, White and Keri Harris had swallowed up Tylcote. White soon slipped back suffering from weed problems. Tylcote again edged ahead downwind to win from Johnson and Harris. A building force 4 greeted the sailors on Sunday morning, but half way through race 4 the wind built far quicker than expected as a large squall passed through. The only casualty of this was Johnson, suffering gear failure. Leaving White to continue unchallenged in 1st place, Gatehouse came in second with Neil Sanders in 3rd. Following the squall the wind stabilised at Force 5 with the occasional gust, but with the tide now turned large waves began to build. Providing some exhilarating down wind sailing, interspersed with swimming for much of the fleet. White won race 5 again followed by Gatehouse and Tylcote. Tylcote lead the final race only to be overhauled by White downwind. These positions remained unchanged giving White the event win, Tylcote in 2nd and Gatehouse 3rd overall.