West Country Boat Repairs SW Ugly Tour at Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club

by James Williams 21 Oct 13:37 UTC 19 October 2024

Chew Valley Lake SC played host to the final event in the 2024 RS200 South West Ugly Tour (kindly sponsored by West Country Boat Repairs) on a surprisingly warm October Saturday, just squeezing in ahead of the arrival of Storm Ashley.

I write this looking out over the lake the day after the event, with 30 knots gusts and increasingly heavy rain giving as much of a contrast to the glorious sunshine and F3-4 of Saturday that you could imagine in a 24 hour period.

Forgive me for not recounting all the details of each race, but such were the nuances of the conditions and closely matched fleet that every ounce of brain power was dedicated to staying in the pressure and finding the right shifts, not leaving much for remembering what actually happened. What I can recall / deduce is as follows:

R1 started in 10-12 knots from the west, which probably averaged out as the mean strength and direction over the day. The line had a bit of boat bias and unsurprisingly the fleet was a little punchy. Some were disappointed to only hear 2 hoots at the gun rather than the 3 needed for another attempt. A good handful of boats came back to restart correctly, including at least 3 from the gold fleet. Unexpectedly the breeze kicked in enough to properly heat things up downwind, the further right you went in to the SE corner of the lake, the more you gained. Chris / Katherine Martin (1728) and Chris Catt / Roz McGrane (1603) came across from the EaSEA circuit to connect the dots and finish first and second.

R2 this time a pin bias and the leaders came from the middle-left. Biggest gains were from taking the port hand rounding of the leeward gate and heading right on the 3rd beat to find a lovely right-hand shift. Chris / Roz and Chris / Katherine once again showed us the way around.

R3 was probably the lightest of the day with the occasional perching upwind giving the toe straps a break. Finally, there was the general recall the fleet had been pushing for following a further right hand shift in sequence. After quickly resetting the course, the next attempt had a lovely square line and the ensuing drag race to get noses in front to the first shift. From where I was sat, I took 2 things away: John Teague / Naomi Pound (1365) manage to sail upwind with the boat bolt upright all the time (evidently this is fast), and Ben / Keira McGrane (1319) had a leech profile on their main that just looked perfect and also seemed to point 5 degrees higher than everyone else (evidently this is also very fast). These two showed the fleet a clean pair of heels.

R4 and the line got more and more pin biased in the final minute that it became as much about getting on to port as quickly as possible than actually winning the pin end. The breeze continued to go left up the first beat, with Peter Loretto / Kelly Aaron (1741), Ed Jones/ Ruth Law (463) and Nick Martindale / Christi Brasher (960) noticeably getting their noses in front early on. Ben / Keira once again worked their magic in the shiftiest race of the day to come through and finish ahead of all 3.

In the absence of lots of race specific detail I'll try to summarise:

• Race Officers Ian Cadwallader and Bill Chard (& race team) make the on-water management slicker and slicker at this event every year. Last boat finishing to next Warning Signal was usually a minute or so and they took every opportunity to square the courses up. Chapeau.
• No one was consistently at the front all day. In fact, this felt like the closest the fleet has been at Chew for a long time and you could easily gain or lose half a dozen places on one leg by hooking in to the right puff / shift
• "There were plenty of places to be gained downwind today" - a reminder that the shifts and puffs count just as much going downhill as up, but are just harder to spot
• We are so lucky on the SW circuit to have a really diverse range of amazing clubs to visit. We had to lay on the best October sunshine I can remember at Chew for a long while to keep up with events earlier this season.
• Results are largely irrelevant when a table of cake appears after racing.

With the top 4 separated by just 3 points by the end Burghfield's Chris / Katharine made the most of the first 2 races to win overall, ahead of Netley's Chris / Roz on countback. Peter / Kelly's amazing last race secured them the silver fleet and John / Georgie Warburton's (1259) rapid improvement at Chew this year gave them the Bronze fleet title.

Roll on the 2025 Ugly Tour!

A full selection of photos courtesy of Gus Cameron can be found on Flickr.

Overall Results:

Pos	Division	Sail No	Helm	Crew	Club	R1	R2	R3	R4	Pts
1st	Gold	1728	Chris Martin	Katharine Martin	Burghfield	1	2	(14)	7	10
2nd	Gold	1603	Chris Catt	Roz McGrane	Netley SC	2	1	7	(9)	10
3rd	Gold	1365	John Teague	Naomi Pound	BCYC	(8)	5	1	5	11
4th	Gold	1319	Ben McGrane	Keira McGrane	Netley SC	9	(14)	2	1	12
5th	Gold	418	Fred Mainwaring	Liz Mainwaring	Exe SC	4	(6)	5	6	15
6th	Gold	1019	James Williams	John Spelman	CVLSC	6	7	3	(10)	16
7th	Gold	1466	David Sweet	Derian Scott	CVLSC	5	4	8	(11)	17
8th	Gold	960	Nick Martindale	Christi Brasher	Chew	(16)	13	4	2	19
9th	Gold	1289	Cliff Milliner	Bec Milliner	Cotswold SC	3	12	6	(13)	21
10th	Gold	1740	Mark Oakey	Jess Oakey	Cardiff Bay	(14)	3	13	8	24
11th	Silver	1741	Peter Loretto	Kelly Aaron	Parkstone YC	(13)	11	10	3	24
12th	Silver	594	Kyle Brown	Madeline Strugnell	Restronguet SC	11	10	11	(16)	32
13th	Silver	463	Edward Jones	Ruth Law	Queen Mary Sailing Club	21	(22)	9	4	34
14th	Silver	1452	Alistair Hodgson	Ella Spain	Draycote Water Sailing Club	10	9	(17)	15	34
15th	Silver	541	Milly Tregaskes	Taryn Banks	Restronguet SC	(18)	8	15	14	37
16th	Silver	322	Freya Brown	Jess Patterson	Restronguet SC	15	16	12	(18)	43
17th	Bronze	1259	John Warburton	Georgie Warburton	CVLSC	12	17	16	(DNC)	45
18th	Silver	1551	Izzy Cramp	Stuart Jones	Hooe Point SC	7	20	(22)	19	46
19th	Silver	1609	Rose Hallam	Dan Brigg	Restronguet SC	(19)	19	19	12	50
20th	Silver	914	Reuben Woodbridge	Joanna Woodbridge	CVLSC	(20)	15	18	17	50
21st	Bronze	288	Chris Hawley	Stephen Lemmon	Bartley / Littleton	17	18	(21)	21	56
22nd	Bronze	247	Sebastian Edwards	Nick Clifford	CVLSC	(DNF)	23	20	20	63
23rd	Bronze	1444	Pete Alvey	Mark Eyles	CVLSC	22	21	(23)	22	65
24th	Bronze	1516	Martyn Stubbs	Yvonne Smith	CVLSC	23	(24)	24	23	70