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Team Racing at Rutland SC |
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Written by Fiona Tylecote
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Friday, 22 January 2010 |
Team Racing is a head to head race between two equally matched teams over a short course. It is usually a fairly intense battle of boat handling, speed and tactical encounters. The options presented not only include going fast, but rather amusingly, trying to 'stitch up' one of the opposition boats to allow your team mates to go sailing through: the latter is often a good deal easier to do than overtaking!
One of the best things about this format is how it allows mixed groups to take part. Youths, Juniors, adults male and female of all reasonable abilities mix together. Worlds and Nationals have been won by sailors ranging in age from late teens to late 50’s with mixtures of male and female helms and crews, it is truly an all encompassing sport. With a lot of team racing talent existing within club members and various entries available to those who are keen, it was time to get others out on the water to have a go at this highly infectious form of sailing. So last Saturday a mixture of club racers, young and younger, got together to have a go..
The day started with a brief overview of the sport and how it works. Then everyone took to the water and team raced using Picos, Toppers and a Feva. The format used in the morning was two boats versus two boat team racing; yes you guessed; each team has two boats. The scoring for this is simple - the team with last place at the finish loses. This means if your team mate is in last place you need to help them. It is fast moving (good on a cold day) and lots of fun. A simple square course was used and with 2 flights there was plenty of racing going on.
After a lunch time break the masses of Oakham and some of Uppingham schools joined the fray. The number of racing flights went up to 4 and now included a Firefly race, 2 lots of Fevas and then the Pico/Topper mix race. The format for the Fireflies and the Picos/Toppers was shifted to 3 boat team racing, which adds a bit more complexity and introduces more focus on speed than the 2 boat. With this format the scoring is the team with 10 points or less wins. As the race track was now quite busy we sailed a different course to enable the start and finish line to be separate. The shape is traditionally used in team racing events and is best described as an 'N' but with a top and bottom reach....ok more like a sideways 'S'.! |
By the time the teams were getting on to the last beat the tactics were getting really tense. Boats were bearing away trying to pin ( stop them tacking) other boats in the opposing team and stop them getting to the finish...and trying to do that whilst keeping an eye on the rest of the race so you know when to dash for the finish... Ten pairs of eyes would be handy at this stage!
For some it was their first opportunity to race a Firefly which is a double handed boat so there is talking to do to ensure that everyone in the boat is working together. They are the dream machine as far as team racing is concerned ....being so easy to manoeuvre and are the boat which most UK team racing events are held.
Great fun was had by all including those who came out and helped, particular thanks to Frank, Guy, Nick, Tom and Alistair and Simon (when he needed a rest) for helping run the many, many starts and coaching and umpiring and mark retrieval! There were about 40 people on the water in the afternoon so not bad for an 'initial introductory session'!!! We were also grateful to those who loaned boats for the activity without which it is more tricky.
There are three more sessions currently planned on: Sat 27th Feb, Fri 2nd April and Mon 3rd May.
If interest remains high then we will look at increasing the numbers and frequency.
The club will also be looking to send teams to a few events this year.
Who won? Well we are not really sure, somehow the results dim in significance when there is so much going on all round the course. There was a 'highlights' debrief where we tried to focus on the best things to do on each leg of the course and how to get some speed advantage....by good starts with acceleration and good tacks and gybes. In future sessions we will consider taking some video footage – anybody up for coming out and giving a hand?
As mentioned above it is open to anyone who is a confident club racer. It is great fun and the more the merrier. Please come and join in! |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 22 January 2010 )
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