Junior Bourne End Week at Upper Thames Sailing Club
by Sue Markham 5 Jun 2016 19:22 BST
2-4 June 2016
Junior Bourne End Week © Debbie Kite
And so ends Junior Bourne End Week 2016, held at Upper Thames Sailing Club. Three days of fun for over 90 children ranging from aged 3 to 16 - games and races, fun sailing, oppie trains, 2000 biscuits, gallons of squash and... pirates!
The winds were a little cold and the sky was a little grey but the rain held off and the smiles on everyone's faces shone brightly. Everyone who wants to - that's pretty much all of our Dolphins and Starfish - gets out sailing, with help if they need it from other children or one of our intrepid team of adult helpers. The Sharks are taken up river for some serious racing in Toppers and Fevas. This year the Fevas were dominated by Ollie Meadowcroft and his crew Matthew Rayner, also our overall winners of the coveted Junior Bourne End Week Champion Trophy. The Toppers were hard fought throughout the series, with lots of different sailors featuring in the top three of each race. The Topper trophy was won by Dan Rathbone.
Our special visitor this year was Naomi Riches MBE, the world champion and London 2012 gold medal winning Paralympic rower. Naomi told us all about her latest challenge this coming September – a non-stop row the length of the River Thames in a single scull from Lechlade to Gravesend Pier (www.thegreatthamesrow.org). She is aiming to finish the row in under 50 hours to set a new Guinness World Record. Needless to say, her gold medal was something that all the children - and adults - wanted to see!
The other main attractions of the event are the legendary team games, with each challenge getting more complicated as the days go by! The team leaders need to be on the ball to know what the rules are and to make sure all of their team plays a part! If you imagine boats full of children, flags and treasure being collected from strategically placed adults, beakers of squash being transported on a Topper without spilling, relays of oppie swapping and getting your team leader round a triangle of buoys as fast as you can, that's about the size of it, with other challenges being thrown in for good measure! The winners of the team prize this year were the Purple team, led by Jack James-Laurie. Thanks go to the organising team of Pink Shirts and all the helpers. JBEW is a special event and our main sponsor, The Rotary Club of Bourne End and Cookham, like to recognise a couple of children who have demonstrated the spirit of the event by joining in, helping and sharing. This year the awards went to Lily Browning and Daniel Eddison. Good sailing by Emily Heath and Rhys Williams and success in a sailing quiz by George Chacksfield were rewarded with prize vouchers from our other sponsor, Virtual Rigger (v-rigger.com).
Lots of photos available on our Facebook page.
Overall Results: (top three)
Toppers
1 Daniel Rathbone
2 Tom Percival-Stein
3 Jack Tosh
RS Feva
1 Ollie Meadowcroft and Matthew Rayner
2 Greg Kite and Jack James-Laurie
3 Emma Walker and Alice Hemingsly