The first UKWA Cup event was held in Portland Harbour over the Bank Holiday weekend with RS-X, Techno, Formula and Raceboard all taking part. Raceboard saw a strong fleet, consisting of more than thirty sailors doing battle over three competitive days of racing in a good range of wind conditions.

In the women’s fleet the leading two racers were sailing with the new Tushingham XR Race 8.5m. Marie Buchanan’s lead over Annette Kent grew with almost every race and she finished the regatta a full thirty points ahead after discards. A superb return to winning ways for Marie after several years away from the raceboard scene.

As for the men, Tushingham’s Dave Hackford took a hard-earned victory using the new 9.5m XR Race sail and Starboard Phantom 380. He clinched victory in the final race (the thirteenth of the weekend!) after a consistent string of top five results including a couple of firsts. It was just enough to edge fellow XR-Race and Phantom 380 rider Rob Kent into second, with the final podium position taken by Tom Naylor (also on the XR-Race), only a very narrow margin behind.

Saturday saw Nik Baker arrive to show the new Equipe raceboard and Tushingham designer Ken Back made an appearance on the Sunday to give an informative presentation with Rob Kent on race sail tuning and setup. After three hard days of racing there were some particularly tired limbs at the prizegving but the raceboard fleet were treated to a good range of product prizes thanks to Windtek, O’Neill, Tushingham and Starboard. The UKWA put on a brilliant event with awesome racing in all fleets.

Raceboard results:

Women

1. Marie BUCHANAN (Starboard Phantom 380, Tushingham XR Race 8.5m)

2. Annette KENT, (Mistral Equipe, Tushingham XR Race 8.5m)

Men

1. David HACKFORD (Starboard Phantom 380, Tushingham XR Race 9.5m)

2. Robert KENT (Starboard Phantom 380, Tushingham XR Race 9.5m)

3. Tom NAYLOR (F2 Lightning 380, Tushingham XR Race 9.5m)

Visit www.ukwindsurfing.com for full info, results and pictures!