RS200 Ladies Day at Burghfield Sailing Club

RS200 Ladies Day at Burghfield © Alex Irwin / www.sportography.tv

RS200 Ladies Day at Burghfield © Alex Irwin / www.sportography.tv

RS200 Ladies Day at Burghfield © Alex Irwin / www.sportography.tv

Sixteen (almost) all female teams made the journey to Burghfield Sailing Club for Ladies Day on Saturday - a day of relaxed, fun, short course racing. The weather forecast turned up as ordered, a perfect 10 to 14 knots of breeze blew straight down the lake allowing long windward leeward courses. Oh, and it was also 20 degrees and bright sunshine, perfect Prosecco sailing conditions, ideal given the bottles on the shore waiting!

The SIs for the day allowed "on the water coaching", although PRO Rob Martin did point out that if a suggestion from coach (and top 200 sailor) Dr Catt turned out to adversely affect your result, that was not grounds for redress! Coach Catt told us that it was going to be gusty so we all needed to "chat" lots between helm and crew and have clear roles in the boat. We were also told that for helms it was very important NOT to hike too hard...

Race one saw some very lady-like starting, allowing Maria and Imogen Stanley and Emma Norris and Matilda Mee to start in front of the rest of the fleet to partake in their own private battle. Team Stanley triumphed, with Trudie Fell and Samantha Childs claiming the best of the rest after a huge amount of place changing.

Race two saw a slightly less lady-like approach to starting, clearly the girls remembered they were 200 sailors.... so a general recall was promptly followed by an individual recall. Alice Kingsnorth and Juliet Charles this time took the race to Team Stanley (now with Imogen on the stick), with Ally Martin and Emma Hivey (sailing Lily) and family Deal (Mrs, Mr and baby to be!) leading the chase, with Martin/Hivey pipping the trio at the bottom of the last run.

After a lovely lunch break, during which a number of comments of "How do I go downwind?", "My shoulders hurt a lot more helming" and "You really don't have to hike at the back do you?", the ladies headed back onto the water for races three and four.

Race three saw Team Lily catch a sneaky shift to lead round the windward mark, after which a battle commenced. Claire Walsh and Petrica Bentley claimed the lead on lap 3, only to have an interesting incident with a shift to find themselves full of water going backwards into Team Stanley and Team Lily. The race finished with Team Stanley sealing the overall victory with a race to go, followed by Team Lily and Walsh C./Bentley.

Race four saw the climax of the internal Team Stanley battle. Imogen needed a win on the helm to take the overall score to 2-all. After another round of flirting with the wrong side of the start line, the fleet got away, and the race proceeded in a very similar fashion to race one, with Team Walsh/Bentley claiming third.

After the racing the fun really started. Once the boats were put to bed and the ladies back in their more glamorous attire, they were presented with a glass of bubbly wine, which seemed to flow almost continuously. Bubbles in hand, the ladies were all shown by Coach Catt how drop hiking really doesn't help your boat speed (or at least that's his excuse) and Team Stanley shared their winning knowledge - apparently it was all about staying low in the gusts downwind and not wanting to change the beautiful (but poorly placed) splice on the kicker!

Post prize giving, with the bubbles still flowing, the ladies were treated to an excellent barbecue courtesy of Ian Sharps. A special shout out needs to go out to Juliet Charles on two counts; 1. She baked brownies to live up to her sisters standards, and they were excellent, and 2. For demanding that husband Nick had to cycle to Burghfield to drive her home so she could drink as many bubbles as she wanted. Excellent work!

Many thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed the day with us, and a massive thank you to Ian Sharps, Ellie Martin and the majority of team Martin for turning a fun idea into an amazing day. Hopefully it will be repeated and we will see more ladies joining us, and also helming on the circuit.

Photos of the day are available at www.sportography.tv.

Overall Results: