Harken 29er Grand Prix 2 at Rutland Sailing Club

Harken 29er Grand Prix 2 winners James Grummett & Daniel Budden in their #HeresHarken bobble hats © Francesca Grade

Sponsored by Harken

Following suit with the previous GP at Draycote we were greeted with a chilly start to Saturday brought by some strong northerly winds, but nevertheless the sailors battled through the rigging to find that they then had to battle the team racers for some space in the already cramped changing rooms.

The strong gusts that had passed through earlier had moderated slightly by the first race but were still pretty fresh, and Dan Budden and James Grummet capitalized on this as they used their unmatched boat speed and a good start to take the lead. Dan and James were closely followed by their much lighter rivals Crispin Beaumont and Tom Darling who put in a strong performance in the breeze with Dan Blight and Rowan Edwards overtaking Jamie Smith and Jamie Jobson on the last run to come in at 3rd and 4th respectively.

The second race was a little breezier and Dan and Rowan managed to get a good start off the pin to take the lead around the windward mark, however Dan and James made use of a good left shift up the second beat to take it from them, a position which they held for the rest of the race. Crispin and Tom continued their good form in the breeze, managing to overtake Dan and Rowan leaving the top 3 positions exactly the same as in the 1st race.

As the day went on the breeze started to ease a little, but this didn't deter Dan and James who managed to complete their hat-trick of victories, while Oli Aldridge and Nathaniel Gordon found their form and took second place followed by Mimi El-Khazindar and Emma Loveridge.

The last race of the day saw Oli and Nat pull out some blistering speed to take the victory and finish ahead of Dan and James for the first time that day, which (with no sailing on Sunday due to patchy and inconsistent breeze) secured them second place overall on countback from Dan and Rowan who finished third in the last race, due to Crispin and Tom suffering a trapeze wire breakage which lead to a capsize on the last run.

A strong 2nd from Dan and James saw them win comfortably overall counting 3 1st places. A big well done to Mimi and Emma for finishing first girls and also to Bobby Hewitt and Harvey martin who braved the strong winds to finish first juniors.

Congratulations to all the sailors and to Rutland Sailing Club for taking part and making it a great event, and we can now all look forward to the youth nationals at Weymouth in a couple of weeks!

Overall Results: