Rutland Sailing Club families celebrate 10th Holiday Week

by Fiona Attwell 24 Aug 2017 13:27 BST 13-18 August 2017

Rutland Sailing Club Holiday Week © Giles Smith

It is the most eagerly awaited week of the year for many children (and adults!), the week of tie-dye T-shirts, water pistols, ice cream adventure sailing, Dunkirk re-enactment, main races, junior pro races, junior pro rookie races, adult novice races, junior jetty races, pirate beach landing and treasure hunt, pirate water battle, teddy bears picnic, Topper relay racing, a quiz, games, paddling the podium and the annual model boat race. It is, in a word, epic.

Fiona and Steve Tylecote (and their two sons, Ben and Jamie) held the first Holiday Week in 2007, wanting to bring Sailing Club members together for a week of activities based at the club in Edith Weston, both on and off the water, with a mix of competition and pure fun. Most families camp in the field behind the club, which allows for kids to camp together and parents to enjoy the "party tent" for a beverage or two after each busy day. And boy is it busy; many volunteers and family members pull together to run races, assist the coxswains, run craft activities, paint faces and plan evening activities – there is rarely a moment to spare if you want to join in the with everything. It's exhilarating! Older youths deliver Oppies to the jetty for the youngest sailors aged 3-4 and Fiona and Steve's parents are on hand to get their lunches ready and be an extra pair of hands.

This year, the highlight was the number of people racing in different boats. The scoring system for the week is unique and very inclusive; each person scores points for any race in each series, regardless of boat or their role in the boat, meaning that you can sail a series in a different boat each race, as helm or crew, and amass points for them all. Most of the older juniors 12+ sail in both the main series, alongside/ with adult sailors with seriously good sailing CVs.

The Junior Pro racing evolved to include Lasers this year, but our newest Tera and Oppie sailors started on the same line and were ranked as rookies for their own trophy. The adult novice series has a more relaxed feel and less entries, so that confidence can be gained racing, much the same as for the younger juniors sailing reaching races from the club jetty. 85 adults and children entered races across the week, a fantastic achievement.

Rutland Sailing Club Holiday Week - photo © Giles Smith

Each evening a prize giving is held, where the leader of each series is presented with the series cap (each a different bright colour) to wear on the following day! Prizes are awarded for podium finishes for each series and certificates for kids of certain ages sailing to get ice cream or competing for the first time. The innovation over the last two years by Richard Pratt is "Paddle the Podium", where all podium finishers have to paddle along to the Hawaii Five 0 theme tune.

All in all, a fabulous week – our thanks as always to the Tylecotes for their drive and energy making this event happen.

2017 Winners: