RS Elite Youth Challenge at Hayling Island Sailing Club
by Paul Fisk 23 Apr 2017 16:57 BST
21 April 2017
RS Elite Youth Challenge at Hayling Island © Nick Peters
Four extremely generous RS Elite owners made their boats available for the inaugural RS Elite Youth Challenge at Hayling Island Sailing Club on Friday 21 April.
The two- or three-person youth teams with a qualifying age of under 19 on 31 December 2017 would helm and crew an RS Elite with the owner's adult representative acting as the middle crew. Six youth teams entered, with sailors aged from 11 to 18 years from the RS Tera, RS Feva and 29er fleets.
Race Officers Nigel Tuttle and Fiona Pyke got the match racing underway on schedule at 6pm on Friday evening over a short windward-leeward course without spinnakers inside Chichester Harbour. A gentle westerly breeze was perfect for the youth sailors to get to grips with keelboat sailing. Quick transfers from Elite to RIB between races gave competitors the opportuntiy to compare notes, talk tactics and discuss the finer points of the rules. From the outset, it was clear that no quarter was to be given with each team enjoying the one-on-one match race format, circling, luffing, jybing, tacking, dialling down and up in an attempt to gain a crucial advantage at the start. The highly competitive sailors were determined to enjoy themselves and were having great fun.
"All of the kids seemed to have had so much fun and banter either racing or sat in the taxi boat. Listening to and watching them all during the evening was fun just on its own. They really are a lucky bunch." Michael Balch (Race Team).
Racing was extremely tight with most matches decided by a half boat length margin and some nail-biting finishes saw boats separated by no more than the width of a cigarette paper. After a hectic 15-race round robin series, Elliot Wells and Nick Robins came out on top with four wins from their five races, and a three-way tie for second place with Grace Fisk/Jessica Balch, Ben Tuttle/Josh Hobbs/Will Balch, Abigail Tuttle/Rachel Pyke all with three wins from five. Close behind were Henry Jameson/Louis Wright/Oscar Ferenczy and Angus Kilpatrick/Jack Henry.
A great time was had by organisers and competitors alike with all looking forward to the next Youth Elite Challenge which seems set to become an annual event at Hayling Island Sailing Club.