Northampton Youth Series Round 1 at Draycote Water Sailing Club
by Jessica Powell 16 May 2021 21:23 BST
15 May 2021
Close racing during the Northampton Youth Series at Draycote Water © Norman and Andrea Byrd
The first round of the Northampton Youth Series was held at Draycote Water Sailing Club on Saturday 15th May with over 25 sailors entered from numerous Midlands Clubs, including Northampton, Cransley, Banbury and the host club, Draycote.
The series focusses on training from experienced coaches including the RYA, followed by some short races in the afternoon for all boat classes. The best part about this series is that the coaches (and more experienced sailors) help the newer sailors during the racing in the afternoon.
Light Winds was the forecast for the day with the boats being split into 3 fleets, the faster boats were the Lasers, Feva's and RS200. The middle start was for Topper 5.3 boats and the final fleet was for slower handicap boats (Optimists & Topper 4.2).
The results were very close in all of the fleets.
The fast handicap boats was won by Kieran Bray (Laser - Draycote & Banbury), winning Race 2 and 3 in his fleet, followed Matthew Best (Laser - Banbury), then Sam Byrd (Laser - Draycote).
For the Topper 5.3, it was Jessica Powell (Draycote) taking the fleet win, by winning Race 1 and 3 for the Toppers, followed closely by Joe Rowe (Draycote), then Keali Rhodes (Northampton).
For the Topper 4.2 / Optimist Fleet, it was Noah Byrd (Optimist - Draycote) who dominated this, taking the win from William Shaw (Optimist - Banbury), then Lola Huett (Optimist - Draycote) very close behind.
Overall event results were also very close with only 3 points separating the top 3. Congratulations to Noah Byrd winning in his Optimist, followed by Jessica Powell (Topper) and Kieran Bray (Laser).
Many thanks to all the organisers and Draycote Water Sailing Club for putting the event on.
This was my first-time racing in this series and I would recommend entering it as it is so much fun and everybody had a great time.
The next round in the Northampton Youth Series is at Hollowell Sailing Club on 19th June. Search on the Facebook page "Northampton Youth Series" for more details.