NEYYSA Random Pairs Christmas Team Racing at Ripon Sailing Club
by Fiona Spence 24 Dec 2025 11:15 UTC
22 December 2025
Christmas headgear during the NEYYSA Random Pairs Christmas Team Racing © David Manning
North East & Yorkshire Youth Sailing Association (NEYYSA) held a Christmas social Random Pair Team Racing event at Ripon SC on Monday 22 December. As befitting the season, we were racing for gold, silver & bronze... chocolate coins.
18 pairs signed up, including some guest sailors from Sheffield Uni and Southampton Uni and a few keen parents who have volunteered at our team racing events this year but haven't actually got in a firefly till now!
After a briefing to explain how it was going to work, sailors in the first races launched the fireflies kindly loaned to NEYYSA by Leeds University & York University. Those not racing were in the start or finish boat or umpire boats and there was lots of laughter, chat and questions while people got into the swing of it.
The wind was light, even by normal Ripon standards so umpires were watching for rule 42 as well as the usual team racing antics. There was a big spread of ability and experience within the pairs, including one sailor in his first race and two other sailors team racing for the first time. We were delighted to welcome 4 university students into the fray and there were some good tussles between them and the more experienced NEYYSA team racers throughout the day. Alongside an eclectic array of Christmas headwear, 3 of the students donned fancy dress for the event, whilst the bright pink velvet jacket & shorts with a pink furry stetson combo was my favourite, the reindeer was popular with our younger crews and several hopped into her boat for a race (& team racing lesson) while her crew had a rest. Another uni sailor was acting as helm and coach for one of NEYYSA's new to team racing young sailors.
Over the course of the day 38 races were completed which given the lack of wind was nothing short of a (Christmas) miracle, despite the light conditions we enjoyed some very competitive racing and the more experienced team racers shared their knowledge with the other sailors. Many of the sailors had not run racing before so there was also lots of learning on how to start and finish races and recording results. The umpire boats were popular locations to watch the racing from; there were several umpires amongst the older sailors and some of the other sailors also had a go with supervision.
Given the winter solstice was the day before, it was a short day and we packed the boats up in the gloaming before heading into the clubhouse for prizes and a post sailing pizza social. Leeds UTC had the highest number of wins, closely followed by the Ginger Ninjas, Treaddur Titans and Henry & George. Full results are available here.
This was the first random pairs event NEYYSA has organised and there is enthusiasm for another one. Thank you to everyone who helped make the day so much fun - on the water or by manning the kettle and cooking the pizzas and then doing the washing up. Thank you also to all the parents who drove sailors there & back during a busy week.
NEYYSA's next event is an ILCA coaching session on 2 January at Derwent Reservoir SC, please check out our website for the full 2026 calendar of north youth & junior sailing events.
Merry Christmas!