ITCA (GBR) National Team Training for Toppers at Northampton Sailing Club
by Isabel Williscroft 23 Oct 2022 20:19 BST
15-16 October 2022
ITCA (GBR) National Team Training for Toppers at Northampton © Gawain Edwards
The first team training of 2022. The first day started off a little bit awkward since not many in the group knew each other, however the awkwardness was quickly eased with the team building activities at the beginning of the day.
The aim of this weekend was "brushing off the cobwebs", expanding on our previous knowledge and mark roundings. The first day gave us some challenging conditions with the wind being above 20kts.
In the morning we spent the time getting used to the conditions and then in the afternoon we worked specifically on mark roundings and had a go at some small races and incorporating some of what we learnt.
As the day progressed it felt like the conditions were getting tougher, whereas in reality it was because we were all getting more tired as the seconds ticked by. By the end of the day nearly everyone had capsized at least once, and we all felt absolutely tired, looking forward to a good night's rest.
The Sunday was completely different to the Saturday prior and gave us a new set of challenges. It was roughly about 10-15kts and the wind would regularly shift.
Today was heavily focused on mark roundings and we played some rounds of "Mark Mayhem" in the morning and "Diamond Geezer" in the afternoon - though it wasn't much of a diamond.
We finished the weekend with some races with the 4.2s adding a sense of a packed start line with the final race being a fun race where we would run round the front of our mast whilst tacking - some people did get a bit wet.
Overall this weekend was a great start to the training and it was thoroughly enjoyable.