DeWalt Scorpion National Championship at Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club - Overall

Again - it's time to reminisce about the most fabulous week of fun a dinghy sailor can have with their clothes on! - 'But what' I hear you cry 'we've already seen some of the photos from the fancy dress on Thursday and there were certainly (male) chests on display - clothes appeared optional!' Well although the fancy dress is important to some (Congrats to the Custard Tarts). Read on and see what else happened that's not quite been reported fully.

Saturday - Blowing a gale with rain to monsoon levels - some people would take that as a bad sign - no - the Eastbourne positivity begins here with the hosepipe ban lifted due to recent weather - Ideal. Boats arriving and being left on the beach in road travel mode with the majority opting to wait till the wind abated a little - (not Mr Denchfield though, struggling to get his mast up in a 40 knot gust! - could that have been Pecker number 1?) Lovely commodores reception with what seemed like thousands of canapes for the hundreds of sailors and families. Pecker to Mr Hayman (our resident F50 superstar boat bimbler extraordinaire) - due to time zone issues Alexs accommodation was booked for the week after the champs... Not an issue as beds were found to look after the team.

DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne Day 2 - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Sunday - Force 3 to launch building nicely - 6 hours on the water as the race committee struggled to battle with wind and tide, rumours the local ironmongers had sold out of chain proved unfounded, and in the end the marks held long enough to get the practice and two championship races in. With an exhausted set of sailors there was just one hero with enough energy to keep us all enthralled - Stick Daring - AKA Mr Laser round the UK (Lunatic raconteur). Thankfully Stick commanded the clubhouse with his tales of daring do around the UK in his £50 laser - a fascinating addition to the fleet socials and well worth attending. - Those too tired to stay awake missed out though I think Stick is one of the 80% of the fleet from this year already pre-entered for Castle Cove. Pecker to Russ for getting confused as to which beach he'd launched from....

DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne Day 2 - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Monday - More breeze again - marks behaving themselves so 3 hours on the water was all that was necessary to get two great races in. The first of our two included dinners (commodore reception excepted). 161 portions of lasagna with trimmings followed by cheesecake to sweeten up the as always excellent Denchfield quiz, - winners were Team Pascoe but as one of the questions had Meg Pascoe as the answer seems a little biased! New friends made with some challenging questions around tables scattered all over the Eastbourne seafront. Pecker - Richard Gatehouse for repeatedly abandoning ship during the day.

DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne Day 2 - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Tuesday - Looked a bit lighter today - not by the second race with boats hitting terminal velocity in race two and maxing out rake, cunningham and crew hiking ability all at the same time. The AGM as ever expertly managed by our secretary Steve Walker with a lot of time spent discussing not just the next 4/5 Nationals venues but also the Scorpion Foundation - much more to follow on this. Fish and Chips expertly distributed from the mobile chip van with over 120 portions in an hour. Pecker - Matthew Raynor for trying to windsurf the boom downwind after breakage in a force 6 bear away - he forgot that there was also a long upwind to contend with.

DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne Day 3 - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Wednesday - Finally the big one. Crews race day. The chance for the real experts to hold that stick thing at the back of the boat. Oh and a couple of championship races before that to make sure the helms could get their tiller fix first. With 24 boats on the line in a steady force three for the Crews Race, the normal helms were made to work very hard for once - a worthy winner in Rob Henderson who just happened to be sitting in the concours d'elegance machine (Tom Castle Memorial) boat with an ex champion crew in the front. Next was Dinner at the club, Chicken Pie, followed by Rachael's 'Human Hungry Hippos'. Potential multiple injuries make this one game to be used sparingly in the future but no hospitalisations on this occasion. Pecker - Mr President Mursell with an old issue of sailing without hatch covers - all OK till you capsize - however luckily no RNLI support required.

DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne Day 4 - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Thursday - Three big questions - 1) Would the wind build enough to get sailing 2) How much rum can the Scorpions get through on Fancy dress night 3) What's the highest number of encores ever recorded at a sailing event ? Answers 1) No, 2) 12 litres (I blame the Boom of Doom) 3) 12 encores registered at Eastbourne on Thursday 10th August 2023 (awaiting Guinness Record verification). Pecker - Louise Corfield - for mistaking a coast guard helicopter for our camera drone...

Alan Krailing & Simon Forbes win the 2023 DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne - photo © Dougal Henshall

Friday - Prizegiving and plans made for 11.5 months time at Castle Cove, greeted as ever by the smiling catering team (all volunteers) with yet more included food - tea and bacon rolls to help soak up that rum. Laden Tables are quickly despatched to their worthy winners - huge congratulations to all prize winners though as I say fairly frequently - as we sail Scorpions we're all winners...

2023 DeWALT Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne prize giving - photo © Ben / Send It Media

Eastbourne had what Scorpions love. Namely - a keen enthusiastic team of volunteers - 72% of the club members helped during the week supporting us with food, launching and recovery, race management, safety cover, serving drinks etc, cheap and available food and beverages, a commodore who was keen to get stuck in and a can do attitude, all made the event sing. The balcony made an ideal viewing platform for the non-sailing folk when they could pull themselves away from bus rides, lunches and visits to local landmarks that they do better every year. The Paintcraft mobile workshop, run by Nigel and Jake, did an awesome job replacing broken spars, pulled out fittings and much more besides to ensure everyone got maximum sailing in and minimum disruption. Eastbourne SSC made a promise to no boats would touch the beach on landing or recovery and none did! Absolutely awesome work. We promised record breaking Rum consumption - we achieved it!

Every year I say how can we improve on the last championship - we did and now the mantle falls back to our Nationals organisation team and the Castle Cove team to lay on a week of sailing, fun and activity that we all remember fondly for a long, long time... 27th July 2024. It can't come around soon enough.

Many many thanks again to all at Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club and our sponsors, DeWALT, Craftinsure and P&B.

Overall Results:
If you finished in the top ten at the Scorpion nationals then enter your Gear Guide information here

Find out more at sailscorpion.co.uk/scorpion-national-championships-2023.html