BUSA Match Racing Finals at Rutland Water Sailing Club

5/6 April 2003

Southampton 1 victorious at BUSA National Match Racing Finals

Eighteen universities made the trip to Rutland Water Sailing Club to compete in the BUSA National Match Racing Finals, which saw experienced match racer Paul Campbell-James sailing for Southampton University 1 as the victor.

The BUSA National Match Racing Finals, which form part of the RYA National Match Racing Series 2003, attracted a high calibre of sailing talent from universities up and down the country which provided exciting racing in the RYA’s fleet of Beneteau first class Eights.

The first day of the Finals saw the teams split into three groups and every team sailed every boat in their group once. Racing was close in group A, and at the end of the round robin Andy Bryson helming the Loughborough entry, London 1 and Southampton 3 were all tied on four wins. This led to a sail-off to determine the top two teams that would progress to the next round and resulted in Loughborough and London going through. Southampton 1, skippered by Campbell-James dominated group B, winning all of his races, with Oxford in second place. In group C, Southampton 2 followed suit and matched their fellow scholars, winning all of their races, closely followed by last year’s runners up Exeter. These six teams progressed through to the Final round robin, where it was Southampton 1 and Exeter securing their places in the finals.

In a best of three final, Exeter University skippered by Alex Cherry, with his crew of John Firmstone, David Carr and Edward Surrey, sailed well to win the first race and piled the pressure on Campbell-James and his team of Ben Field, Dave Newey, Hamish Walker and Dave Steed. Campbell-James fought straight back and won the second race, at one all it would be down to the final race. With experience acquired from sailing on the international match race circuit, Campbell-James’ talent shone through, the crew work imitated a well-oiled machine and they took the final race and with it the championship, helped by a premature start by Exeter.

Both Southampton and Exeter secure their place in the RYA National Match Racing Finals, which takes place from the 26-28 September at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy.

This just left the sudden death play-offs for 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place; with one chance, Andy Bryson of Loughborough beat John Greenland of Southampton 2 and Ali Hall of Oxford overcame the challenge from Mark Lees helming for London University, to determine the top six results.

RYA Racing Services Manager David Atkinson commented, “The weekend provided a very good competition with some closely fought battles in fairly tricky conditions. The competitors showed a high level of match racing talent and we hope that we will continue to see many of the sailors competing in the RYA National Match Racing Series.”

For further information on the RYA National Match Racing Series 2003 and details of how to qualify for the RYA National Match Racing Finals, log on to the RYA website www.rya.org.uk/Racing/MatchRacing

Overall Results: