Fleet Captain: Tom Britton              

The Topper is probably one of the most popular boats after the Laser, it's a simple one design, low maintenance and virtually unbreakable, it will keep it's value and is great fun to sail.
The RYA use the Topper and Mirror dinghy as their first choice for selection of young sailors in the training programmes leading up to Olympic selection
At Ripon Sailing Club we have over 40 Toppers, this year we are hoping to get more of them out on the water and joining in with the racing.
The Topper sailor now has the option of converting to centre-main sheeting, although many want to retain the traditional aft sheeting arrangement which still remains legal under the new rules. Most keen Topper helms are changing over to the new system because it has benefits when racing.
One of the main advantages of course is that learning with centre main will make it much easier to transfer to the other high performance boats further up the training ladder. There is no doubt that this is the way to go, it doesn’t make the boat faster but it does make it more efficient, less tiring and more fun.
Anyone can sail a Topper no matter what age or weight, you can even get 9 kids on board and it still stays afloat (just!).
So why not come along and see what Ripon Sailing Club can offer you!

Fantastic results for RSC Sailors in the 2008 Topper North Zone Championships - RSC sailors took the top three places out of 38 entries. The conditions were challenging on both days with a lot of wind on Saturday and hardly any at all on Sunday. Four races were completed on Saturday due to the poor forecast for Sunday. Sunday started with no wind causing postponement for several hours. Eventually a slight breeze arrived allowing one race to be run, but with the dying wind the final race was abandoned. Final results were:

1st Tom Britton
2nd Kieran Hill
3rd Sam Towers

Full results here.... The full Y&Y Zone Champs report is here... (the North Zone is near the bottom of the article)

Topper 2008 Nationals in Torbay- Three days of qualifying races for nearly 300 competitors decided the entries for the gold, silver and bronze fleets for the finals. RSC sailors are well represented and the final results are as follows.
Gold Fleet - no entries
Silver Fleet (91 entries) - Kieran Hill (Scaling Dam/RSC) 2nd, Tom Britton 44th, Sam Towers 51st, Alice Milnes (Denholme/RSC) 53rd and Hector Simpson 68th
Bronze Fleet (92 entries)- Chris Towers 45th
Regatta Fleet (32 entries)- Hugh Simpson 27th (first novice 4.2 rig)

Topper 2008 Inlands at Grafham Water Sailing Club- 7 sailors represented RSC in the Main, 4.2 and Regatta fleets. Congratulations to Chris Towers who finished 4th overall in the 4.2 fleet & Hector Simpson gaining 108th & Sam Towers 113th place out of 239. Final results of main fleet here.. and event pictures here...

Report from Y&Y here.

Topper Zone Squad Selections 2007 - A strong RSC junior presence will be seen in the North Zone Squad over the winter 2007/2008 with congratulations to Chris Towers, Tom Britton, Hector Simpson who have been selected and also to Sam Towers for being re-selected.

Topper Open Meeting 2007 was a great success, 26 boat turnout, 12 from RSC. Surprisingly consistent wind force and direction provided near ideal conditions and very competitive racing. Katy Shepherd retained the 'Top Hat' trophy, narrowly beating Oliver Wright with the results for the top places very close indeed. Special mention must go to Dave Gebhard who achieved 3rd place despite it being his first time ever in a Topper. Club results are here. The series results (when posted) can be accessed from the Results page.
Even photographs can be viewed here