Bristol Corinthian welcomed a bunch of hardy 200 sailors to their Winter Championships last weekend (22/23 March). It was definitely a case of winter by name and winter by nature as hail storms made the final stages of rigging and launching that bit less appealing!

26 boats braved the cold and were treated to 3 races in a W/SW breeze ranging between 7 and 22 knots. The wind wasn't making life easy for Arky the race officer though - as clouds came through there were shifts of 40 degrees plus - invariably half way through the start sequence!

The Rushdens showed early season form with a very consistent day (1,1,3), closely following by the current national champions Matt Mee/Emma Norris who again showed excellent down wind pace.

Bristol Corinthian did themselves proud on Saturday evening; hot filling food, highly competitive skittles matches and a respectable quantity of rum helped the evening progress into the early hours.

Sunday brought with it some more consistent sunshine and a gradually increasing breeze peaking at 25 knots. This made for close and interesting racing with a lot of place changes. Picking the correct side of the run proved to be key with most people feeling both the snakes and ladders impact of this. Matt and Emma were on rocketship form and showed us all how it is done with three bullets on the Sunday giving them the win overall. Ian Martin with crew Charlotte Dobson had started to get the boat in gear and despite a close encounter with the spreader mark were showing good pace around the course. However, James and Will Rushden managed to cling onto second place and third overall were Nick and Juliet Charles showing consistency over the weekend.

Charlie Roome with crew Eddie Glennie proved that practice isn't really required to finish 7th overall and first silver fleet. They were closely followed by Neil Barratt and Sophie Jones in 9th. The Bronze fleet was won by Sarah and David Green from Llangdegfedd.

It was great to see a competitive fleet out on the water early in the season, also good to see several new and upgraded boats reflecting the ongoing strength of the fleet.

Our massive thanks to Bristol Corinthian and race officer Bob Wainright who delivered six good races in challenging conditions.

Next stop on the 2014 calendar is Rutland Water for the high octane Sprint Championships on 12-13th April. The short course will test our early season sharpness and boat handling so we look forward to seeing a good crowd of 200s there.

Nick Charles