Results / Winter Championships Oxford SC - 16/02/2002

A foggy start welcomed the strong RS700 fleet for the Winter Championships at Oxford Sailing Club, but as the morning went on the sun came out & they were blessed with warm sunshine & light breeze to battle for the title. As you would expect with such an exciting boat, all the races were extremely closely contested with a very busy windward mark, and places changing throughout all the races, but it was the skill of Tim Johnson from Chew Valley SC that took line honours on all but one of the races. Race 1 saw Tim Johnson (Chew Valley SC) & Andy White (Stokes Bay SC), current Inland Champion, zoom off the start line and away in a battle for 1st place, closely followed by Tim Garvin (Queen Mary SC), who had a job to fend off newcomer to the fleet, ex-Contender sailor Nigel Walbank (Lymington SC), closely followed by Carl Vining (Datchet Water SC). Line honours went to Andy White. Race 2 again saw Johnson finish 1st, with White second & Charley Merchant (LDC) 3rd. Race 3 was won by Johnson again, with White who was in second place for the whole race, being pipped at the post by Garvin, closely followed by Walbank, who is making his 700 go very fast in the light stuff. On Sunday, the fog was there to greet them again, but the forecast was for sunny & light winds later on, so the race officer waited and was rewarded by perfect sunshine, and a good breeze in which to run the last few races. Race 4 saw Garvin take the left hand side of the beat to round the windward mark in 1st place followed by Johnson, Walbank & White. Garvin lengthened his lead by flying his kite early on the tight reach to the spacer mark & opened up the lead on the fleet, only to head for the wrong leeward mark, only realising his mistake after letting 4 of the chasing pack through. After a long battle, which saw Vining, Johnson, White and Walbank fight it out for 2nd place, line honours again went to Johnson with White 2nd, and Walbank 3rd, Vining 4th, Garvin 5th. With 1st & 2nd place overall sewn up, battle for 3rd was on for the final race, which saw Johnson & White, 1st & 2nd, and Walbank pulling out the stops to claim 3rd place, followed by Vining & Garvin. A fantastic weekend�s racing was had by all, thanks to Oxford SC. The RS700 class looks forward to the next event, Chew Valley SC, and with so many top helms from other classes joining the ranks, this season is set to be a challenging & excited one to say the least.