Twenty National 12s took part in the open meeting hosted by Pevensey Bay Sailing Club over the weekend of the 12th and 13th of June. The fleet was greeted on Saturday with brilliant sunshine and a rather shifty force 2 to 3. Kevin Iles and Jane Jones led at the first windward mark but were overtaken downwind by Jon Brown and Rachel Williamson and Jon and Charlotte

Ibbotson who arrived at the leeward mark with a decent lead over the pack. The Ibbotsons handled the shifty beat well to take the lead but couldn’t hold Brown and Williamson on the run who got through to take the race. The Ibbotsons again took a commanding lead in the second race, Brown and Williamson came through the fleet to challenge but were unable to get past leaving it all square overnight.

Three races got underway on Sunday after a brief postponement to let the sea breeze fill in. John and Katy Meadowcroft took an early lead showing excellent upwind speed. Sailing intelligently downwind on the tactically tricky run into the tide they held off Brown and Williamson to win in the now pleasantly steady force three.

The fourth race saw Iles and Jones arrive first at the windward mark with an impressive lead showing that with the right handling the ‘old’ single bottom boats can still be very competitive. After a close fought race a raft of four arrived together at the final leeward mark but Iles and Jones held off current champions Tom Stewart and Liz Ross to take the gun.

In the final race Stewart and Ross led at the windward mark and managed to sail away into a commanding lead to remind us all why they are the current champions. After five races we’d seen five different winners so the results were close but in the end Brown and Williamson won overall and Stewart and Ross had done just enough to edge out the Ibbotsons.

1st Jon Brown & Rachel Williamson

2nd Tom Stewart and Liz Ross

3rd Jon and Charlotte Ibbotson