IOCA South Pre-Nationals Training at Bosham Sailing Club
by Andy Kerr & Roger Cerrato 28 Jul 10:55 BST
25-27 July 2018
IOCA South Pre Nationals Training at Bosham © Andy Kerr
Over the hottest days of the year, blue skies and force 1 to 3 were booked for the IOCA South pre-nationals training at Bosham Sailing Club from 25th to 27th July. For once the weather gods delivered perfectly and even threw in a magnificent thunderstorm to celebrate the training's conclusion (we weren't scared honestly...).
Fourteen sailors travelled from Bosham SC, Emsworth SC, Burghfield SC, and the Royal Victoria YC on the Isle of Wight to make sense of the wonderfully challenging tides in and around the Bosham channel. Day one saw sailors assessing the best way to use the ebb and flow to their advantage to win races. Isabelle, Honor and India demonstrated local knowledge comes in useful, to get a head start but doesn't help for long when training with 11 other alert sailors who quickly spot and copy the home advantage, Finn and Noah especially weren't going to be fooled for long.
Speedy beating was the aim of day two. Variable wind and wind with tide gave perfect conditions to practise upwind sailing, keeping the sailors on their toes trimming their boats. Squat, Side, Hike, now Kiwi, Squat, Hike. Scarlet and Zac showed slick skills at reading the changing wind strengths while Oscar and George respectively suggested tacking facing backwards in an Optimist should probably be avoided and buoyancy bags work best when inflated.
Starting and navigating congested points around the race course was the focus of day three with the sailors choosing to dine afloat to make the most of the conditions. "I hovered!!" exclaimed an excited Lucy after one start. "My boat doesn't sink with air in the bags!!" exclaimed George and Tom. Well I'm very glad you all learnt something from the training.
All sailor hopefully leave with some new and improved skills to test over the summer, and definitely leave with better rigged boats thanks to the coaches Emily Walters and Oliver Hill. A big thank you to Bosham SC for hosting the training and making their fantastic site at Cobnor available and a thank you to the parents for allowing coaches and Optimist sailors to use their power boats. Have a great summer to all sailors and parents and good luck to those making the journey to Pwhelli next weekend.