Photos: Sportography.tv

See Sportography.tv photographs at http://sportography.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/Volvo-Noble-Marine-RS200-Nationals/C0000HOgWDA6sD_8

See Sportography.tv Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJmW2_-iuBo

See photos from Photolounge at http://www.photolounge.co.uk/Event-Images

Report

97 RS200 teams were treated to a very friendly welcome to Mounts Bay Sailing Club. I like this sort of club. It has salty overtones, redolent of oilskin, neoprene, sweat and two-stroke. All the (very friendly) (bar) staff are volunteers, and the place is small - tighter than a gnat’s crotchet. Or even a wasp’s Wendy. And our Commodore Clive and the RO Peter – both resplendent in Alan Partridge stay-press grey slacks and shiny-buttoned blue blazers – gave appositely short and cheersome introductions. All the boats are parked by the promenade, where interested (and frankly enormous) muggles amble past. When they ask I explain we’re sailing to France.

Day 1 (Sunday) we had two full-on F4-5 with waves. Results and pictures around somewhere, probably below. The beau monde of the sailing world – great skin, teeth, hair, trust funds - are there in the top 20. And David Jessop (who may have gotten away with popping his bowsprit up Chris Mratin’s plop socket). Further back, there was a 5-boat flustercluck, with words flying as bitter as shards of gel coat. The race committee protested them, but all now resolved.

So, gate starts. You’re supposed to be able to smell the breath of the guard boat driver’s pasty-ed breath. It’s all about finding the corridors of power and not the dark alleys I found. They smell of old wee. Get it wrong, and there are very few options to bin it onto port and retain any semblance of dignity.

Day 2 was an asthmatic, old dog’s wheezing cough of a dying breeze. I somehow avoided the ‘Duckhams Award’ (a sort of Darwin award for the nautical hard of thinking. Yesterday it went to someone who popped off his rig tension, only to drop his mast – quite possibly onto a fat person. We’ve all done it with a frisbee). I did one very slow roll tack, caught my lifejacket on the boom, and very, very slowly capsized. The band was still playing on the foredeck as we slipped gracefully into the briney. I may have heard a muffled whimper from the front. Women and children first – I got my leg over faster than a stabbed rat.

And today’s racing was canned, so the 5 teams in this household retired for a spot of local delicacy: Newlyn Crab, mussels, winkles in cider and beef courgette

Final Report

So, final report from the 2016 Volvo RS200 Nationals in Marazion, Cornwall, where navigation after the racing is a cinch (you pass the Duchy to the left hand side, obvs.) Unlike my previous oeuvre, I am getting this post race drivel in through a stained glass window of sobriety.

Excellent PRO Peter Jellis had to cram in 6 races in two days. Day 4 was a gnarly force 3-4 through a chop. From this helm’s perspective (glorious mid-fleet mediocrity), that was hard work. Keeping the bow down and getting the foils to bite was the order of the day, and you could now bounce a coin off these abs.

Results and all that are below.  I did note that today the cover Matt Mee was putting on James Peters was tighter than a pair of cling film and bungee-wedged undercrackers.

Other adventures have included (having been warmly hosted by Lord St Levan, The Duke of the Mount), several of us swam home from St Michael’s Mount. Though in Escape from Alcatraz I am sure Clint Eastman hadn’t been primed with several glasses of warm Pinot G.

And my newbie RS200 chum Curran discovered that seepage from his plop socket is a pretty slow way around the course. Oh, and Rob Struckett was stuck like a cheap suit to the windward mark, most times.

We’re now off to play idle parlour games and supper at the Godolphin Arms.

Julian Bradley. alternative reporter

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