NEYYSA North Regional Youth & Junior Team Racing Championship at Ripon Sailing Club

Another brilliant weekend at Ripon Sailing Club for the North region's third Youth & Junior team racing championship on 21 & 22 September. This event was started to celebrate the North East & Yorkshire Youth Sailing Association's (NEYYSA) 40th birthday and it goes from strength to strength. This year there were 21 teams competing from across the region, with many sailors venturing onto the team racing course for the first time.

Thanks to the generosity of Derwent Reservoir SC, Elton SC, Leigh & Lowton SC, Sedbergh School and Windermere School we had four flights of RS Fevas available for the weekend for the two-boat team event.

Rutland SC loaned us two suits of team racing main sails to help with team identification and NEYYSA is enormously grateful for the support from the Eric Twiname Trust who have provided us with a grant to purchase two sets of team racing jibs to help promote team racing in the region. TridentUK.com made the jibs for us and even delivered them to the event! We have a red & blue set and red & blue stripy set.

Eric Twiname Trust funded jibs - NEYYSA Team Racing Championship at Ripon - photo © Dave Wood

The Eric Twiname Trust was established in the 1980s following the untimely death of Eric who was a talented sailor, sailing journalist and sailing administrator. Eric was well known for his excellent tactics and strategy and was a keen team-racer. The trust provides grants and funding to clubs and associations for sailing events and equipment. The jibs look fantastic and made commentating, competing and spectating a lot easier!

Saturday morning racing started promptly at 9.20am after all teams and supporters pitched in to rig and launch the boats and the thrills and spills, highs and lows of team racing started to appear rapidly as the racing progressed. 92 races were completed on Saturday in a round robin to rank the teams into gold, silver & bronze for Sunday. Our thanks to K-Sail for providing the racing schedule (and their enthusiastic support prior to the event).

Fantastic conditions - NEYYSA Team Racing Championship at Ripon - photo © Dave Wood

This event is all about introducing sailors to team racing and building skills, some of the more experienced team racers split their usual teams and took young and less experienced crews to help share the learning. 14 teams had at least one member who had never team-raced before and 10 teams had sailors competing in their second NEYYSA team racing event. The event provided a number of coaches who were able to share their knowledge and help the teams improve throughout the weekend. The event also took the opportunity to provide coaching and mentoring to some new & trainee umpires thanks to the national umpires attending.

Each team had to provide at least one volunteer to assist with the event, less experienced volunteers were paired with an experienced hand. It is testament to the enthusiasm & commitment of the volunteers that the duty rota co-ordinator spent most of the weekend trying to get them to come ashore at the end of their duty slot so that someone else could have a go - a very nice problem to have in this era of low volunteer numbers!

The commentator helped everyone on shore better understand the game with most spectators choosing to sit close to the commentator to follow along. Questions were encouraged and between the commentator and coaches, all questions were answered and lots of knowledge shared. Racing was held within yards of the bank so everyone had a ring side seat and could easily see and hear the calls on the water.

Friendship and social time - NEYYSA Team Racing Championship at Ripon - photo © Dave Wood

After an immense fish & chip social supper from Bradley's on Saturday evening competitors and supporters headed to bed for another early start on Sunday.

Sunday racing again started promptly after a coach and umpire briefing and feedback session. The teams had been divided into gold, silver and bronze fleets based on Saturday's results.

Bronze fleet enjoyed a change in fortunes on Sunday, having all found it tough going on the Saturday against the more experienced teams and it was brilliant to see them putting into play the hints and tips from Saturday to deliver some cracking matches with great team-racing moves. Spectators cheered them on and many matches were given a round of applause as they crossed the finish line.

GenTwo Pengwins recovered from their disastrous Saturday to deliver a suite of wins to take bronze fleet but Windermere A were a close second with 5 wins with Wavecatchers in third on 3 wins having spent some time talking through their plans with the coach before their first race. Wavecatchers had to be split on points from Windermere D in 4th. Coniston Waterpark's Swirlhow team, completely new to team racing were 5th with Storm Seekers in 6th and Sedbergh in 7th. The results don't really reflect the closeness of many of the races, but that's team racing.

New Experiences for many sailors - NEYYSA Team Racing Championship at Ripon - photo © Dave Wood

Silver fleet's Rutland Racers and Coniston Waterpark Wetherlam had a good tussle and had to be split on points to decide second & third; Wetherlam hadn't team raced before so their third place was particularly pleasing. Scaling Dam's team recovered from their frustrating day on Saturday to take a clean sheet for first. Elton Extras's had a great Sunday after a slightly topsy turvy day on Saturday when two races had to be re-sailed due to gear failure to finish 4th with Otley's Neon Ninja's narrowly beating Otley Red Devils into 6th with the ever smiling & endless questions Windermere C team in 7th.

Gold fleet was great spectator sport throughout the day, the first match of the day was defending champions Top Hats against Windermere B who hadn't dropped a race all Saturday. The spectators settled down with their coffee and bacon sandwiches and enjoyed a great display. Close racing continued in this fleet with DRSC, West Kirby and Team Boreas all delivering 3 wins apiece with a lot of umpire whistles which meant 2nd - 4th had to be decided on points. Top Hats were not allowed an easy ride with West Kirby and DRSC in particular giving them challenging matches with a lot of team racing moves and red flags keeping the umpires busy. Scaling Vikings had a tough day as a new team in an experienced field after some great results on Saturday. They fought hard and delivered a well-deserved win against Rutland Ospreys, who had just beaten DRSC, to much cheering from the shore; with practice this team could be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

Everyone helped pack up the boats and the prize-giving thanked the many people who made the weekend so fantastic. Ripon Sailing Club were great hosts and their galley was amazing with their customary cake mountain, hot lunches, soups and snacks. The enthusiasm for team racing is high in the region, one parent reported their sailor had bounced out of bed on Saturday morning like it was Christmas Day! We totally understand this feeling and hope to see all the sailors back at future regional team racing events.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this weekend happen, the behind-the-scenes admin and planning for a large team racing event is significant and it doesn't happen overnight or without a lot of effort from many people.

Eric Twiname Trust funded new jibs - NEYYSA Team Racing Championship at Ripon - photo © Dave Wood

Gold Fleet Results:

Silver Fleet Results:

Bronze Fleet Results: