Derbyshire Youth Sailing event provides perfect warm-up for National Youth Regatta
Carsington Water, the venue for this summer’s National School Sailing Association National Youth Regatta, delivered near perfect racing sailing conditions on Saturday, June 14 for the Derbyshire Youth Sailing series 2008 event.
The 35 entrants enjoyed sunshine, blue skies and moderate to strong breezes for the three-race event and this gave the Derbyshire Team an excellent work out, on what will be home waters for the National event in July.
The fleet included sailors from right around the county but it was two boats based at Carsington Sailing Club that led the way throughout the day. Ed Jones (17) and Matt Cruz (17) were the event winners in their 29er double handed dinghy closely followed by Elliot Banks (17), winner of the previous event, in his Laser dinghy. Third place went to Ogston S C sailor Ben Crossdale (15) also sailing a Laser dinghy.
Leading the girls home was fourth placed Rhiannon Horton (16) from Staunton Harold SC sailing a Laser 4.7 dinghy and the leading Junior sailor was Carsington SC sailor, Joshua Haynes (9) in his Optimist dinghy who was 12th overall.
David Levick, acting Chairman of DYS, said: “It was a really excellent day’s racing for all of the team. If we could book weather like this, or perhaps even a little warmer, for the whole of the NSSA Regatta week in July, that would be perfect.”
The first race saw Ed and Matt in their 29er dinghy get off to a flying start and the result of the first race reflected the overall result at the end of the day. The race course that was used had the same layout as will be used for the NSSA event, so it was a foretaste of the circumstances that these sailors will face as they compete against the teams from around the country.
However, the 29er didn’t have it all their own way. In the second race it was Elliot who took the race win followed by Rhiannon and then Ben. However, the third and final race of the day saw the 29er pair dominate again with Elliot in second place once more but this time followed home by Craig McCarthy (17) of Burton SC in his Laser Radial in third place.
Ed Jones said: “The sailing was fantastic. Apart from a small glitch in race two, we had a perfect day. With the speed of our boat we really enjoy sailing at Carsington Water because it is big enough for us to have space to enjoy ourselves and work the boat and ourselves to the maximum.”
In the DYS series after six races the leading pack is well established with Ben Crossdale leading from Jenny Saunders (16) of Staunton Harold SC, with Ben Haynes (13) of Carsington SC in third place. However, with the series result being based on a sailors’ best six results from ten events, the outcome is far from certain.
The NSSA National Youth Regatta will run from July 21 to 25. The last opportunity for Derbyshire Youth Sailors to practice together is at Glossop SC on Saturday, July 12, the seventh event in the annual series of ten.
Photo used with thanks to Charles Saunders.