15th Derbyshire Youth Sailing series underway at Errwood Sailing Club
by Mike Haynes 19 May 2015 07:56 BST
9 May 2015
The 15th Derbyshire Youth Sailing series starts at Errwood © Mike Haynes
The 15th series of the Derbyshire Youth Sailing series has started with a fabulous event held at Errwood Sailing Club. The volunteer team, the sailors and their supporters alike all enjoyed a fabulous day's racing sailing on the dark waters of this picturesque reservoir nestled into the Goyt Valley, high in the Peak District National Park.
Twenty sailors in sixteen boats ranging from Optimist, Topper and Pico through Laser Radial, Laser Standard and on to double handed boats including two Graduates, a Laser 2000 and a Bosun, proved a wonderful spectacle as the weather provided really interesting racing conditions.
Several of the competitors were racing in their first open event having learned to sail and race at their home clubs. Derbyshire Youth Sailing provides the opportunity for sailors to gain confidence and experience in taking their sailing to the next stages in their chosen sport.
Dan Wellbourn Hesp, who continued his strong performance from where his last years' series finished off, was the overall winner of the day's event. Dan commented "The wind was very challenging today and it was really tricky picking the shifts but we all had a great time anyway."
Michael Latham, Commodore of Errwood Sailing Club said "It was fantastic to see so many young sailors enjoying their sailing so early in the season. We had a strong local turnout and we've been delighted to welcome the travelling sailors to our wonderful club, in particular it was good to see how well a young sailor from just school year 6 competed today".
The changeable wind conditions with the wind dropping slowly during the afternoon provided a stiff contest for the sailors and whilst Toby Woodings sailed exceptionally well and was the lead boat on the water in all three races, the corrected times gave Dan Wellbourn Hesp the results he needed for the overall event win and by extremely close margins, as little as 3 seconds. Bryn Abendstern and Annabelle Coppinger were third overall.
The scores are extracted for the three school age groups of Seniors (yr 10 and above), Intermediate (yr 7 to 9) and Junior (up to and including yr 6) sailors. In the Seniors, Toby was first with Bryn and Annabelle in second and George Coles in third. In the Intermediates Dan was first, followed by newcomers Emma Robertson second and Jack Latham in third and for the Juniors, Kate Robertson was awarded 1st place, also in her first DYS event.
Derbyshire Youth Sailing events provide a great, fun opportunity for youth sailors from any of the ten sailing clubs in Derbyshire to compete together and learn from each other to take their racing sailing onto the next stages. Novice youth racers aged from 6 to 18 are welcome to come along and give it a go. Supportive coaching can be provided to those sailors at the back of the fleet to help keep them in reach of the rest and allow them to develop their skills. In time, the novices soon gain experience and will one day be challenging the front runners.
www.dysailing.org