RS Elite Eastern Area Championship (Burnham Week)

Date: 23 August 2019 - 26 August 2019
Club: Royal Burnham Yacht Club

Paul Fisk and crew repeated their Cowes Week success at the 2019 RS Elite Eastern Area Championship held on the 24^th – 26^th August as part of Burnham Week. RS Elite 110 Legs Eleven won all six races to take the RS Elite Jeremy Rogers Trophy for the Eastern Area Championship and the Princess Caroline Bowl for Burnham Week at the grand prizegiving at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club.

After a windy Cowes Week this was a light weather series with generally easterly winds allowing the race committee to set windward-leeward courses in the River Crouch. The races tended to be rather long, apart from the final race where a shorter course was set following representations from the fleet.

Following Legs Eleven’s perfect score of five points (after discard), competition for second place was fierce. David and Fran Wood’s Oink Squeal (RS Elite 48) counted three second and two fourth places and Richard Bavin and crew in RS Elite 68 Serious Moonlight counted two seconds, two thirds and a fourth with both boats finishing on 14 points. Overall places were decided on countback. Further down the results table, Neil Fulcher and crew in his unnamed RS Elite 107 took fourth place and Chris Agar and crew in RS Elite 18 took fifth. A notable newcomer was RS Elite 75, recently imported from Thailand where RS Elite hulls were built for several years.

The Eastern Area Championship is a new event in the RS Elite calendar and this year most entries were from east coast clubs, with the majority from the Royal Burnham Yacht Club. It is hoped to build on the success of this year’s event to grow it in future years. Lessons learned form 2019 have been that the fleet prefers slightly shorter races and following his dominance of this year’s event Paul Fisk, the only visitor from the south coast, has been asked to provide coaching for the east coast fleet.