Just a brief summary; As expected no F16's entered but 13 Cats took to the water midday Saturday. The weather was pleasant with an afternoon of broken cloud turning to a superbly sunny and warm evening and wall to wall sunshine on the Sunday. The wind was a little variable in both direction and strength as it was coming from the North the strength was between 10-20 knots all weekend. The sea state was relatively flat with a slight choppy wave pattern from the south. The PRO set a windward, leeward course approx 3/4 mile long with the start finish line roughly 1/3 the way up the beat. I was competing on an A Class along with two others who came 2nd & 3rd at the recent Nationals, there was also a big T, Inter 20 a couple of F18's, Dart 18's & 16's. The competition was very close and in the first race I managed to get a 2nd place behind a F18 but in front of the other A's. In the 2nd race I managed a clean Port Flyer which was great fun! In the 3rd race I was 4th. Overnight I was in 4th place with an 'A' in first, F18 second, Tornado third.
I had a pretty lucky lift in the fourth race and was 1st over the water, then a disappointing 5th race finishing 3rd but felt a lot worse at the time. And during the last race the 3 A's finished first over the water and within twelve seconds of each other with me leading by two seconds from the 2nd 'A'. Like I said it was very close racing and a simple mistake could cost you! The final result was Nigel 1st A'Class, Me 2nd A'Class, Dave 3rd F18 beating Steve A'Class on count back. (Although, if you extracted the 'A' results I beat Nigel so I'm happy with my improvements since the Nationals).
I hope all you other UK F16 sailors had a good and enjoyable weekend as I did.
I wont be doing the ECPR as it's to far to travel for 1 race and The MYC are hosting The Welsh School Championships so there will be in excess of a hundred boats and I've volunteered to help with the Race Management. However, I do hope you all have a great time and try and keep up with Chris & Georgina for as long as possible

Congratulations Mark! Always knew you'd be quick in an 'A'. Where do you think you'd have finished overall in the Stealth?

If, and that's a BIG if I had kept the stick pointing in the right direction (quite a problem for me) I would imagine I would have finished between 5th and 7th position on the F16. In the majority of the races the twin wire cats were twin wiring and when that happens they can eek out a bigger gain upwind than I can catch up downwind. But that's just me who isn't exactly the heaviest F16 singlehander.

nice start in the second race <jealous>