2ndhanddinghies.com RS200 SW Ugly Tour at Exe SC – oh yes Exe

The fourth round of the 2ndhanddinghies .com RS 200 SW Ugly Tour saw 14 visitors join 6 home boats for yet again an exceptional open meeting at Exe SC on Sept 24^th. Luckily Exe SC, the weather and RS200’s have a very happy knack of combining to produce really good conditions,  top race management, a very friendly atmosphere, very close proper competitive racing and of course cakes, cakes and more cakes. This year was definitely no exception.

After a worrying gentle morning the fleet found a steady 10/11 knots in the race area from almost due south that slowly rose during the 4 races to be 14 knots during the final race which gave good little waves. The race team were spot on with course lengths as each race was 33-36 minutes for the leaders. So down to the action.

After several boats were over the line at the start John Teague/Louise Fisher walked away with race one with Peter Eyre/Nina Norden second. Sister Liz obviously thought anything my brother can do I can do better and led at the first mark even with the handicap of Mr David Steed crewing ;RS200 Chairman and full time helm; who had been to the Ally Martin arm above my head finishing school of crewing. He now claims that crewing an RS200 is easy and does not know what all the fuss is about– right Dave I should hide at the Inlands. Well despite her crew Liz led the whole race and just held on by a narrow margin on the final run from a fast finishing Pete Vincent/Jo mummy Kangurs.

New team of Edd Whitehead/Ian Mairs liked race 3 to open the event up with a race win with Teague/Fisher claiming second on the final run. There were now 5 possible winners going into the final race and 4 of these boats were right together at the first mark with Whitehead/Mairs in the lead. Richard/Paru Edwards timed their gybe into the leeward gate to perfection to move from third to first where they stayed for the rest of the race. For them to win positions behind had to go their way but Teague/Fisher were always in the top 4 and  finished second to win overall by 2 points.

How open the racing was was clearly shown by there being 4 different winners of the 4 races. Peter Eyre/Nina Morden won silver in 7^th overall but perhaps performance of the day was Exe SCs Orkun Soyer/Guy Farrant winning the bronze division in 6^th overall; Orkun from Turkey has only had his 200 for 2 months, this was his first proper asymm racing and his sails were very old.

Round 5 of the 2ndhanddinghies.com SW Ugly Tour now moves to Chew Valley LSC on Oct 15^th. Teague/Fisher and Vincent/many crews will continue their season long battle for the overall lead with Teague/Fisher now in pole position. The Oakey’s from Chew now have a serious challenger for the silver division in Eyre/Norden whilst Chews David Sweet/crews 8^th at Exe put him top of the Bronze.

Oh and can we order more of the same for the RS200 Nats at Exe SC, Aug 19-23, next year.

Pete Vincent