ITCA Topper NS1 at Draycote Water Sailing Club
by Mark Turner 11 Oct 2025 18:40 BST
4-5 October 2025
You know you're in for an exciting sailing weekend when the storm has a name!
With storm Amy forecast for the weekend there was a lot of speculation as to whether NS1 at Draycote Water Sailing Club would go ahead or not, with a final decision being emailed out on Friday at 10am. The decision came through that everything would be delayed by 2 hours so people could travel on Saturday morning, with the hope to get 1 race in later that day and 4 races on Sunday. Which is exactly what the amazing staff at Draycote, led by Dave Rowe, managed to deliver!
We arrived on Saturday for 10am, the wind was very strong. My dad went wing foiling and even he said it was gusting 45-50knts! We all got registered and boats readied and then waited to see if the storm died down enough to race. By 4pm the wind had dropped a little and the Draycote team were huddled together on the terrace debating whether to launch or not. To our delight they decided to go for it, with D flag planned for 4:15pm! They didn't launch the 4.2's only the 5.3's.
Launching was tricky as the wind was really gusty but eventually we all got out to the race area, lots of boats were capsizing whilst waiting to go into sequence, which finally came. After a frantic start line we all settled into the race. This really was top end conditions to sail in, which was amazing, and most of the sailors seemed to cope with this well with only a few struggling. Boat speed was incredible! There were lots of screams of excitement and smiling faces as we all zoomed around the well laid course. Adam Green who had travelled all the way from Ireland took the win, but nearly didn't as I watched him finish on the windward side of the committee boat, I was in 2nd place and wondered if he'd spot his error - which he did and then corrected! My brother Toby Turner was close behind me in 3rd. We slept well that night!
On Sunday the wind was much less, guessing around 18knts with gusts 25-30knts. Both 4.2 and 5.3's were safely launched and sailed to a similar start area as Saturday.
Race 1 of the day was soon under way. It went without hitch and oddly finished in the same order as Saturday's race with Adam taking the win, myself (Faith Turner) in 2nd and my brother Toby in 3rd. The next 3 races were won by Toby to take the overall win for the Autumn Championships. Prize-giving took place in the clubs bar where our new ITCA Chair Greg Croxton announced and the lovely Draycote Commodore Will Whittaker presented.
The final results from NS1 were:
5.3 fleet:
1st place Toby Turner
2nd place Adam Green
3rd place Faith Turner
The closely contested 4.2 fleet had a different winner for each race with only 2 points separating 2nd-6th places and with Jake Day being crowned the overall winner.
4.2 fleet:
1st place Jake Day
2nd place Martha Shorter
3rd place Rex Wraight
All in all this was an amazing weekend at one of my home clubs and somewhere we spend every winter being coached by Steve Irish at the Draycote Academy. Amazingly out of the top 8 sailors in the 5.3 fleet 6 of these were all from the Academy!
Draycote Water SC is a lovely club. The people there are great, really friendly and helpful. The on-site chandlery coupled with Dave Rowes expertise means any repairs or replacements can be dealt with without any delays. It is easy to launch with tons of room for trolleys and kit. Thank you Draycote Water SC for having us and a huge thank you to everyone at the club, all the volunteers, sponsors and race team. Also to Topper Russ for fixing up any broken or leaky boats and supporting us all with spare parts. Also thank you to all of our parents for making this happen!
Results can be found here:
The next event of the series is NS2 (Winter Champs) which is held at WPNSA on the 7/8th March.