University Keelboat League event at Rutland Sailing Club
by David Wilkins 14 Feb 16:34 GMT
University Keelboat League event at Rutland © David Wilkins
There were 7 university teams and scheduled for 1 Rutland team to make 8 teams for this event. But illness in the Rutland team caused them to pull out at the last minute. So it was just the 7 universities.
The format is that the event is sailed in the 4 RS21 keelboats with the seven teams rotating in and out of the boats.
Each race is about 15 minutes in length and this weekend there were a total of 28 races sailed. Every team sailed in 16 races and sailed against each of the other teams between 8 and 9 times over the course of the event.
The racing on Saturday was somewhat curtailed by very light winds or zero winds and only 7 races were sailed. The leading team on Saturday was Portsmouth Purple with 4 wins followed by Solent Irish with three wins and a second.
Sunday was forecast to give much more wind and after an early light fog, it cleared just before the scheduled start to give a great breeze. There was also quite a bit of fog amongst the competitors, but the 15 knot breeze soon blew away any remnants of fog anywhere.
This allowed the race team to run a record 21 races in a day on Sunday giving a total of 28 races over the whole weekend and 16 for each team.
That left all the competitors exhausted but very happy with such great racing in perfect conditions.
The competition was intense on Sunday and the two leading teams started where they finished off on Saturday. However, Portsmouth Blue had some poor results and Solent Irish powered ahead of the fleet winning several races in a row.
Solent Black was fast catching Portsmouth Purple who held on by a whisker - just 1 point to hold off Solent Black in the end.
There are six events around the country, Rutland being the third held so far.
These teams will go forward to University Keelboat Sailing Finals to be held at Rutland on 25-27 May, when there are at least 12 teams expected to compete based on the top teams over the six events.
Overall results:
1. Solent Irish, 58 points, Average finish position 1.38
2. Portsmouth Purple, 50 points, Average finish position 1.88
3. Solent Black, 49 points, Average finish position 1.94