The Sheffield Shuffle 2017
by Kate Ledgard 18 Nov 2017 06:22 GMT
11-12 November 2017
Last weekend thirteen universities descended upon Sheffield for The Sheffield Shuffle, hosted by the University of Sheffield Sailing Club on the 11th/12th November at Pennine Sailing Club. This year was biggest event in the history of the Shuffle with 21 teams, and is sure becoming a memorable fixture in the Northern Team Racing Calendar, and for many, the Shuffle is their first event of the year.
The teams had driven from near and far from the North, South, East and West. To join us were three Nottingham and Swansea teams; two Leeds, Liverpool and York teams; one York Alumni, Sheffield, Sheffield Alumni – the 'Sheffield Spoons', Sheffield Hallam, Reading, Birmingham, Durham, Manchester, and Bangor.
Arriving on the Friday night, the weekend kicked off to an Indie start at The Leadmill. Saturday morning dawned, cloudy and cold - pretty typical for Pennine Sailing Club. Boats were ready to go by 9.30am, and racing started straight off with the first T-bone of the weekend... (Did someone say Durham?). A healthy breeze built to help direct any untoward illness at the windward mark (Did someone say Reading?). The sun came out and racing continued, despite a few races being taken down to two boat races due to broken parts. Saturday at Pennine concluded with the first round robin completed.
A quick rest for some and straight onto the booze for others as teams got creative with their fruit and vegetable themed fancy dress, before reconvening in Bar One for another night of antics. Tomatoes, grapes, watermelons, pears made up a fantastic fruit bowl to party the night away in Poptarts. Many crawled home for a couple of hours sleep, and, for those of you still unaware, Balti King post night-out party-curry was still a 'thing', and shout out to Durham who finished the night at a house party.
Sunday morning began with a beautiful sunrise (for those up early enough to see it). Cut-downs were put on the boats for a forecast of 15-20 knots with some strong gusts. Wind-chill taking us down to minus 8 was enough to awaken sailors for a 9.15 start! Another t-bone, and a holey boat later and the bronze fleet was cut down to 2 on 2 racing to continue racing, enabling gold and silver fleets to continue sailing.
As the sun set, and after a quick study of the sailing instructions to sort out our tied Gold fleet, racing continued into semi-finals and finals with a 3/4 playoff. Swansea dominated the results from the start to end of the weekend, taking 1st place, and proceeded to celebrate appropriately by concluding the weekend with a shoe.
Thank you very much to some very dedicated members of committee, especially Henry Mills, the PRO, who ran the weekend's racing and organised team entries.
He commented 'The weekend has been a great success all round. We managed to get 133 races in including semi-finals and finals. This year we were blessed with no snow, perfect wind conditions and sunshine all weekend. The -8 degree wind chill did throw up a big challenge, especially when boats were breaking, but everyone battled through valiantly. I would like to make a big shout out to Swansea for bringing 3 teams all the way to Sheffield and congratulate their first team on being convincing winners. And also to Henry Hughes whose commitment putting in over 40 hours of driving to get the fleets and ribs to Pennine on time, has been extraordinary'.
We'd like to say a huge thank you to Nottingham for providing 2 spare boats and Leeds for providing a fleet. Also, to our many helpers and hosts who made the weekend possible, Pennine Sailing Club for the use of their club house, boats and support, the umpires, photographers - Abel McLinden & Ed Badger - and all the sailors.
Overall Results:
| Pos | Team |
|---|
| 1 | Swansea 1 |
| 2 | Manchester |
| 3 | Liverpool |
| 4 | Swansea 2 |
| Silver |
|---|
| 1 | Swansea 2 |
| 2 | Nottingham 2 |
| 3 | Reading |
| Bronze |
|---|
| 1 | Sheffield Spoons |
| 2 | Hallam |
| 3 | York 1 |