Sailors race on through rain, sun and hail
The Derbyshire Youth Sailing series event at Trent Valley Sailing Club saw all types of weather last Saturday 5th April and despite it all the young sailors carried on racing and enjoyed the challenges of sailing on the River Trent.
The day started well enough with dry but cool conditions and a little bit of sunshine every now and again but soon the clouds thickened and rain looked set in. Certainly the first race began in the rain but this didn’t put the hardy sailors off their stroke. What was taking their attention in the first race was the challenge of the light North Westerly winds that were affected by the river bank trees causing moving patches of no breeze that caught out the unwary. Nevertheless the sailors used their skills to push on and work their way around the course.
During the first race the skies cleared and the sun came out giving warmer, pleasant conditions for a large part of the race. This saw the two series champions from 2007 start the defence of their titles in fine style in the first race with Craig McCarthy (16) Burton SC and Joshua Haynes (9) Carsington SC coming home at the head of the Seniors and Juniors respectively. Ben Crossdale (14) Ogston SC and Lewis Ibbotson (17) Trent Valley SC came in 2nd and 3rd behind Craig.
Ben Richardson, DYS Rep. for Trent Valley SC commented “It is a real pleasure to see these young sailors enjoying themselves in close fought races. They are largely used to sailing on the still waters of the reservoirs in Derbyshire and around the country, so sailing on the flowing river sets new challenges for them to cope with and they manage it well.”
The wind continued to veer to the North and for the second race the Race Officer extended the race course to take in the first part of the River Soar that runs South - North. This is a rare occasion for sailors at Trent Valley who normally use the West – East trending River Trent only. The pleasant conditions continued for race two and the challenge for the event win was laid down by Ben Crossdale who won the second race, closely followed by Harry Levick (16) Carsington SC and with Craig McCarthy close at hand in 3rd.
After lunch, the weather seemed to be holding out and the third race got under way in reasonable but cooler conditions with the North wind set in. This allowed a second excursion for the race course on the River Soar. However, the North wind brought with it a number of intense hail storms in the latter part of the race and the sailors had to battle on through being stung by the hailstones.
Jenny Saunders (16) Staunton Harold SC took the race win with Ben Crossdale in 2nd and Tommi Cluley (14) Staunton Harold SC in 3rd. Craig McCarthy unfortunately did not finish the race. Meanwhile Joshua Haynes had continued to succeed and had posted race wins for the 2nd and 3rd races in the Juniors.
So with the race results in, the first series event win went to Ben Crossdale with Craig McCarthy in 2nd and Jenny Saunders in 3rd. Joshua Haynes secured his Junior series event win and took the first step to retaining the Ellen MacArthur Trophy. The full results for the event are on the website www.dysailing.com along with fair weather photographs of the sailors in action.
The next Derbyshire Youth Sailing series event for 2008 is to be held at Toddbrook Sailing Club on Saturday 19th April. Briefing is at 10:30 with the first race at 11:00 . Details and pre-event registration is available, along with lots more information, all on the www.dysailing.com website.
Image supplied by Mike Shaw www.fotoboat.com