NSSA Team Racing at Bartley Sailing Club
by Mike Haynes 10 Oct 2006 08:50 BST
Close racing in the National School Sailing Association Team Racing Event at Bartley © Mike Shaw /
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Derbyshire Youth Sailors James Hadden (15), Matt Rawson (17) and Alley Britton (17) have won the National School Sailing Association Team Racing Event held at Bartley Sailing Club near Birmingham and received the HMV Britannia Trophy for the first time in Derbyshire Youth Sailing’s short history.
The team racing event brings together the country’s top flight, school aged youth sailors in an exciting racing sailing format where they have to work together as teams, rather than the usual individual racing that is the normal format for most of their racing sailing.
Teams of three boats compete head to head in short, fast races and the sailors use their boat handling and tactical skills to beat the other team. The lowest total points scored wins each race and the points allocated are simply 1 to 6 as the boats cross the line. It can be as important to slow down the progress of your competitor as it is to get across the line ahead of them.
DYS Team Manager Sally Hadden explains “If you see the teams as three pairs of competitors then it is simply a matter of being ahead in two out of the three pairings and you will win the race. Being 2nd, 3rd and 5th is better at just ten points total than 1st, 4th and 6th which is eleven and loses.”
The Derbyshire Youth Sailing team racing sailors are obviously adept at both sailing competently and doing the maths of how to beat the opposition. The event has been the target for DYS for some time especially as in previous years they had come close to taking the title.
With 32 teams entered from around the country and the event needing as many as 12 rounds of races there can be over 200 races to be held in just the two days of the weekend event. The organisation needs to be really slick and the teams need to be very well disciplined to be in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude and remembering to have fun too.
Alley Britton commented “We really wanted to nail it this time round as it is our last chance really as we’ll have left school next year. The competition was very tough and it took the three of us working together to take the title. Matt and James were awesome out there. Communication was the key. We knew before each race exactly how we were going to play it and it worked brilliantly.”
Matt Rawson added “It is a fantastic feeling to have taken the title. The trophy is massive and bringing it home for Derbyshire is just great.”
The weekend of team racing had its ups and its downs for the four teams entered from Derbyshire. However, that can all so easily fade into the past when one of your teams wins the event. There are lots of great images of a fabulously competitive weekend of team racing that can be found on the Derbyshire Youth Sailing website at www.dysailing.com just take a look.