The UK 2023 Traveller Series Events have been published on the Calendar page here
Author: RG65 NCA Page 3 of 5
Round 8 of the TT series attracted 15 skippers from 8 different clubs, unfortunately the wind was not from a favoured direction for the lake but blew from a Southerly direction, wind strength was good though with a few nosedives by most at sometime during the day.
John Carlin volunteered for PRO duties and set a decent course that was tweaked on more than one occasion during the day. The racing was all about getting the start right which was easier said than done.
Racing concluded at 4pm with 15 races completed thus giving us 2 discards. John Tushingham was the winner on the day sailing his conventionally rigged Scurry, Graham Elliott sailing his Argon was second with Peter Baldwin sailing an Uno rounding out the podium.
Race winners on the day were, Graham Elliott (5), John Tushingham (4) and Peter Baldwin, Christopher Elliott, John Brierley, Dorian Crease, Bill Culshaw and Vernon Appleton all getting 1 race win each.
Round 9 and the series decider was on the Sunday, 13 skippers from 8 clubs, the good news was that the wind was a beautiful top suit from Gautby Road with plenty of shifts that could make anyone look great if they got in tune with them or send you to the back of the pack if you misread a couple of them.
John Brierley took the PRO job and set a great start line and gate that spread the fleet out nicely. On the day we completed 16 races by the 3.30 cut off time that gave us 3 discards. It was Dorian Crease sailing his Manta 21 who gained top honours on the day, Dorian sailed a great day and in a manner that was to be admired, 2nd place again went to Graham Elliott sailing his Argon with Peter Baldwin in 3rd sailing his Uno.
Race winners on the day were Bill Culshaw (4), Dorian Crease (3), Chris Elliott (3), Graham Elliott (2), Peter Baldwin (2) Derek Priestley and Vernon Appleton both with a single race win each.
A big thank you must go to all volunteers, Judith Baldwin for finishing and scoring all weekend, Chris and Jocelyn for keeping the endless supply of tea, coffee and cake over the weekend and our two PRO’s John Brierley and John Carlin.
Next years TT calendar is now nearly completed and hopefully we can look forward to races at Eastbourne, Woodspring, Barton Point, Datchet, Bournville and Birkenhead, all to be confirmed for the 2023 season.
Results as follows:
Sunday pictures thanks to Judith, although light levels were a little poor for the mobile phone camera.
Overall Results have been updated after Birkenhead and available on the Overall Results page here
Here is how the series overall stands after 5 events. With 9 events in total and 5 to count for the series, there is plenty of opportunity for the standings to change by the end of the season.
Rounds 4 and 5 of the TT took place at Keighley on the 16th and 17th July.
A great days sailing on Saturday in a breeze which was generally towards the top end of full size swing rig. Later in the day some sailors did change down to a full size conventional or low aspect full size swing after a few nose dives but the winner held onto his Swing Rig all day. Winner was once again Chris Elliott, with Peter Baldwin 2nd and John Brierley third, all sailing Uno’s.
After a slow start and delay of about 90 minutes due to a distinct lack of wind, 17 races were completed on Sunday in conditions that were difficult for the sailors, but more especially for the Race Officer, John Sharman.
The event started in swing rigs with about 4 or 5 knots of breeze, but by lunchtime, the breeze had picked up considerably averaging at least 8 knots, with gusts of around 15. Everyone therefore opted for a rig change, with a combination of low aspect swing and conventional rigs in use.
Unfortunately by the end of the day a number of sailors had gear failure so that having started with 10 boats only 7 were left racing.
Today was eventually won by John Tushingham in a Scurry, with Graham Elliott (Argon) second, and Peter Baldwin (Uno) third.
The locations for TT6 & TT7 have now been agreed as a weekend event consisting of two separate days of racing at the Two Islands Radio Yacht Club on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th September 2022. Further details and NoR will be available in due course.
Every now and again things come together to create a special event. 15 very capable skippers with well sorted boats, wind in the right direction and strength, and a reasonable day, weather wise. The intention was to sail 16 or more races over a two lap, windward/leeward course with an upwind spreader mark and a downwind gate. Designs in use included Uno, Sith, Scurry and a lone Argon and Visionary. All were carbon or glass, having no 3D printed ones was a surprise.
Chris Elliot took the first heat, followed by Chris Cockayne in the second, John Brierly in 3&4, Peter Baldwin weighed in on 5, Augustin Moreno in 6 and so it went on. Putting the scores together at the 4 heat break points made for fascinating reading. The leading pack were swapping places with the overall lead changing at each heat. The quality of sailing ability was superb, rule observation was excellent, that was across the fleet and the event. A short break for lunch was taken and it was clear that it would be a struggle to get the 16 heats in the allotted time, after discussion with all the skippers, it was agreed to extend the finish time to 16 heats. If you look through the results, which I’m sure the skippers will, you can see it was a close-run thing between the top 3, Chris Elliot came out on top, taking also the new Midland District trophy, from the Birkenhead duo of Peter Baldwin (2nd) and John Brierley (3rd). There were a couple of withdrawals when boats and skippers broke but all stayed on to watch the racing. It was that sort of an event, a pleasure to take part in, and to run.
Bill Green – Race Officer
Heading photo by Gordon Sears and presentation photo’s by Rohan Williams.
Overall Series positions have also been updated and are available here
A Gallery of photo’s from the event is available here
The weekend of 14th to 15th May saw the RG65 fleet compete for the 2022 National Championship at Princes Park lake, Eastbourne, home venue of Eastbourne & District Model Yacht Club.
Of the 23 yachts entered, 22 made it to the start line on Saturday morning after a briefing by event PRO and Eastbourne club member Peter Kemp.
Peter, a relative newcomer to radio yachting in DF95s and IOMs, is an experienced dinghy and keelboat sailor and brought his experience and skill to the running and management of the event. Peter was also a school teacher at one point in a long and varied career, so keeping the class in order was second nature, with firm but fair decisions made throughout the two days of racing.
There was an International flavour with entries from the USA – Martin Gray, France – Achille Chatin, Spain – Victor Izquierdo Rodriguez, Switzerland – Tobias Laux, and UK based Argentinian skipper Agustin Moreno.
Previous title winners were also present, namely, Graham Elliott, Tobias Laux and Agustin Moreno.
A total of 23 races were sailed on the Saturday in light to moderate southerly winds with wall to wall sunshine, after all,, Eastbourne is the sunshine capital of the south coast, thus allowing a long windward/leeward course to be set within the topographical limits of the lake.
To give a detailed breakdown of how the racing and positions unfolded would be too exhaustive to record here, but by the end of day one and 23 races, Graham Elliott with his Electronica had a firm grip on proceedings at 29 points and he appeared to be on his way to another UK National title unless something major occurred. Victor Rodriguez (Uno) sat in second place overnight on 92 points. Rohan Williams from Two Islands with his new Uno design was in third on 101, Peter Baldwin from Birkenhead again sailing a Uno was fourth on 109, and Achille Chatin was lying fifth on 122 giving the Uno even more presence in the battle of the hull designs.
Saturday evening was spent by most at a local Italian restaurant and some ventured on to local hostelries as one would expect. Of course, the second most important event of the year after the RG65 Nationals, was also taking place, namely the FA Cup and then there was of course Eurovision. All in all, a surfeit of televisual delight awaited competitors after their day on the water and a tasty Italian meal!
Then Sunday came with far less fanfare than the previous day and Eastbourne’s sunshine capital reputation was in tatters, it was overcast and initially with winds of reasonable strength but this time from the eastern to north-eastern quadrant and with rain also forecast. When racing did get going after an initial postponement, it was all A rig racing despite the stiffer wind indications given on a number of weather forecasting apps.
A further 10 races were completed when the fickle winds allowed and after an enforced postponement of approximately 2 hours over the lunchtime period which was long enough for the only protest hearing of the event to be heard.
Graham Elliott with his red Brad Gibson designed Electronica again reigned supreme and tightened his stranglehold over the title with a final tally of 41 points from a total of 33 races!
Victor Izquierdo Rodriguez was second on 129, Rohan Williams kept up a great string of results to take third on 158, while Achille Chatin moved into 4th after two late in the day first place finishes in the dying breeze on 158 points. Peter Baldwin took the fifth spot with 167 points.
If anyone fancies a nice break in the South of France with some RG65 racing, the French Nationals will be held in Antibes 23rd,24th and 25th September and they are keen to encourage overseas entries.
Results Page 1 of 2
Results Page 2 of 2
Results can be seen at https://edmyc.org.uk/2022-open-meeting-results/
Just remember to scroll left to see the scores for the two days.
Report by EDMYC and more photos thanks to Julian Tyrer on the RG65 UK Class Association Facebook page.
The first round of the GBR RG65 TT series was hosted by Lincoln Radio Sailing Club on Friday 1st April. The experiment of holding a race on a Friday before a DF TT weekend unfortunately did not work out, it was hoped we would swell our numbers with either RG’s or a few would enter and use their Dragonforce 65’s as a practice for the TT race’s being held on the Saturday.
Still, 17 RG65’s entered and were welcomed to the club by our PRO for the day Pete Walters at 9.45, Pete proved himself a great PRO for the day, keeping racing ticking over nicely and setting some great startling line’s and courses which was not the easiest job with the wind swinging in direction over the day, using a pole on the bank as one end of the start line was a good idea, as no time was lost to alter the bias.
Racing started at 10am prompt with most skippers opting for the ‘B’ rig, some swing and some conventional. It was Graham Elliott sailing his Brad Gibson designed Electronica who set the early pace winning 6 out of the first 8 races but the pack was not far behind led by Peter Baldwin sailing his Uno and Derek Priestley sailing his newly acquired Scurry design.
At around 1pm a 40 minute lunch was called and this gave skippers a chance to escape the elements and get warmed up as most were now drenched by snow, rain, sleet and frozen to the bone by the wind chill factor and freezing conditions. To think only one week ago I was in shorts planting bedding plants and having a Guinness on the patio, what happened to Spring?
After lunch, the wind continued to go from ‘A’ rig to ‘C’ rig gusts in a matter of minutes and it was Peter Baldwin that mounted his challenge winning races 9,10 and 11 with Tobias Laux sailing his new design, Deadbeat65, also making progress, his new design certainly was an improvement in these conditions, especially downwind, even with an extra set of 60g batteries in the boat that he had forgot about, sandbagging before the Nationals in 5 weeks maybe?
Pete called it a day at 4pm, just as the sun decided to come out and 16 races sailed. Race winners were, Graham Elliott (8), Peter Baldwin (5), Derek Priestley (1), Tobias Laux (1) and Jim La Roche (1).
Many thanks must go to the Lincoln club, they always do the best they can to ensure the skippers have great sailing under some challenging conditions, special thanks must also go to Jen Hand and Judith Baldwin who finished every race in what can only be described as filthy weather.
The 2022 UK RG65 Nationals will take place over the weekend of 14th and 15th May 2022 at Eastbourne & District MYC. Entry has now opened via the MYA website by following this link. The Event NoR is also available on this event page and any Entry will need to be accompanied by an online payment of £20 for the Entry fee.
Here are the proposed dates for the TT Series in 2022.
| Friday 1st April | Lincoln (TT1) |
| Saturday & Sunday 14/15th May | Eastbourne (Nationals & TT2) |
| Saturday 11th June | Bournville (TT3) |
| Saturday & Sunday 16/17th July | Keighley (TT4 & TT5) |
| Saturday & Sunday 17/18th September | Midland District (TT6 & TT7) |
| Saturday & Sunday 22nd & 23rd October | Birkenhead (TT8 & TT9) |
There are a total of 9 TT events (including the Nationals) and so the Overall Series result will be based on 5 of these to count.