Nick Craig, current RS400 National Champion was today Jan 10th awarded the prestigious Yachtsman of the Year award, voted on by members of the Yachting Journalists Association. The other two people nominated for the award were Dee Caffari and Ben Ainslie. As many people have observed it is great achievement for a truly amateur small boat sailor.

 

Nick has been a long term RS400 sailors and big fan of the class but also finds the time to sail many other classes. In 2011 he also managed to win again the OK World Championship as well as the UK OK Nationals and Inlands. He also won the Endeavour Trophy for an amazing 5th time. Many congratulations Nick from all in RS land.

91.5% (65) of the votes were for the proposed changes, so we will be going forward accordingly.

Many fleets will not see much of a change, especially initially, but the first change you will all see are new-look websites which will be going live in January.

A very Happy Christmas to you all, and Great Sailing in 2012.

How will all scoffed when Ian “jubby” Jubb announced his plan to take part in all 9 classes Nationals at the RS Games; completing at least one day in all classes. Impossible we all thought, he will break one boat, he will break himself, crews will be too embarrassed to sail with him, his wetsuit will go on strike and his liver will emigrate. Well Jubby had the last laugh sailing through mission impossible with aplomb and some success. Yes he completed at least one day in every class finishing 29 races in 12 days.

If all that was not enough Jubby brought all 9 boats with him on his Sailboat Deliveries monster trailer and van, rigged/ de rigged the lot but he was also sponsoring events at the RS Games. Sailboat Deliveries sponsored the Champion of Champions award eventually won by Ian Martin. With business partner Pete Vincent 2ndhanddinghies sponsored social evenings at the TridentUK RS200 Nationals including the now legendry fancy dress night featuring the “boom of doom”; more of this later.

Luckily for Jubby things got of to a good start because super crew Bonnie Moody sailed the first two days to organise him and day 1 in the RS800 was soon under their belt with results in the 40’s. We were all looking forward to Jubby in an RS500 but day 2 was proper breezy out in the bay and as Jubby with such PC tact put it “we went midget stomping”, results of 12th and 17th gave them overnight 13th best in the World; god help us! The RS100 was tackled with style with two top half finishes. The surprise was the RS700; the only class Jubby finished last overall in with some dodgy bar story about he could have led if the rivet had not come out!! Week one ended with Jubby in an RS400 in light winds; the 3 three things do not mix as his results showed.

Jubby then bridged the 2 weeks by doing the whole 3 days of the Vareo Nationals scaring us all by finishing 7th overall. Now having his second wind and fully acclimatised to Weymouth beer he continued his fine single handed form into the RS300 with 15th and 13th places. Then it was the class Jubby always used to race, the RS600. The first 2 races were relatively quiet but as the wind came up Jubby became the monster coming over the port lay line as he powered his way into the lead in the next two races; even though he was the safety car on the run he won both races. RS Chairman Pete Vincent in-between holding his head in his hands threatened to throw the RS600 class out of the events for not sinking Jubby. Then it was the big night the RS200 fancy dress night sponsored by 2ndhanddinghies and Jubby produced the “boom of doom”; surprisingly the whole 200 fleet and most of the 300/600 fleets got the hang of this straight away as Jubby/Ugly tried to wreck everyone with Mount Gay. Fortunately wife Pippa just about kept Jubby under control. Luckily for the ear ache of everyone at the RS Games it was down to earth with a bump next morning, the last two days racing was in an RS200. In their first race Jubby and Gael Pawson were the first boat out of the gate and headed for France on their one tack strategy, a triple figure score was the result.

But the minor detail of the overall result in the RS200 faded to insignificance compared to the amazing feat of getting all 9 boats to Weymouth on the Sailboat Deliveries trailer, completing 29 races in 12 days in 9 different classes championships and being consistently the last to leave the bar . Truly raising the bar.

For more information on boat deliveries all over the UK and Europe see www.sailboatdeliveries.com or ring 01243 377633; for help finding a second hand dinghy see www.2ndhanddinghies.com.