(Poole, England)- The Poole YC Girls Sailing Team report from their UK J/24 Nationals in Plymouth
is both entertaining and a lesson learned for aspiring women’s sailing
teams. Sophie (24) & Georgie (26) are both Poole-based sailors who
have grown up together in the world of competitive sailing. Through
childhood, they always had great opportunities thrown their way as
National and International sailors were travelling to events around
Europe. Here’s their report on the recent UK J/24 Nationals experience:“The J/24 Nationals this year were part of the annual regatta held down in Plymouth. The turn out for the event was promising with 18 J/24’s entered, far better than previous years. The weather forecast looked on the blustery side over Friday calming down Saturday and Sunday.
The girls; Sophie, Georgie, Nina & Beth, made our way down after work on Thursday evening meeting their 5th crew member Izzy from Bristol at the club. A swift registration and weigh in saw us 52kgs light for the weekend, not ideal for a windy Friday.
Friday kicked off with some fabulous and somewhat tricky sailing conditions, 16-17 knots with big swells and chop, but champagne conditions with the sun shining! The first day saw some collisions, mark hitting, protests and no surprise- some black flag starts! We ended the day with a 12th, 8th & 11th, much room for improvement, but no real crew issues or muck ups!!
Day
two saw us going in as the 1st place Westerly, Jiffy was hot on our
heals with just a couple of points in it. Much lighter airs and tidal
conditions saw the Plymouth boats with an upper hand on local knowledge.
Improvements were made for us through the day with our results
improving. 16th, 13th and finishing with a very nice 7th place– super
pleased!!Day three we were still managing to hold onto our 1st place westerly, pretty good going considering it was our first event together, and we have one that had never been on a J/24 before – although you wouldn’t be able to tell that from her excellent skills! With more wind than forecast the first race kicked off – again no surprise a general recall, we’re all keen in the J fleet!! 15 kts of breeze, slightly more chill in the air but flatter water & the first race kicked off. It was all to play for at the front of the fleet. Duncan McCarthy, David Cooper & Roger Morris with just a few points between them all saw them battling for first place going into the final day. The Westerly’s were still battling it out with just one point!!
The
racing was tense, lots of protests, shouting, mark roundings and raft
ups. Luckily, we stayed clear of all of this but it’s always good to
see such competition. Duncan and his crew proved their Europeans title
by finishing the day with two 1sts to claim the National Championships
title of 2015. David Cooper and his crew managed to take second place,
and Roger Morris in third.We weren’t very happy with our final day performance, finishing the day with an 11th & 15th, claiming our 2nd place Westerly, 12th overall & first females!!
Overall, we take a huge amount of positives from the weekend, with a fresh crew and a not so race-ready boat we were actually happy with our performance. Lots to work on for next time!! Well done to the girlies!!
A HUGE THANK YOU to David Cooper for lending us his Westerly ‘Red Alert’ & to Roger Morris for lending us a set of his sails!!! It couldn’t have happened without you! For more Plymouth Girls Sailing stories, please visit their blog here
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