London Youth Travellers at Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre
by Sally Jones 1 May 2014 08:07 BST
27 April 2014
London Youth Travellers at Hillingdon © Sally Jones
Don't always believe the weather forecast!
The first London Youth Traveller Event took place on Sunday 27th April at Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre (HOAC), an event organised by parents to allow participants from London based clubs and RYA Centres to enable the youth sailors to take part in class racing in a relaxed and friendly environment in different locations across the capital.
The forecast before Sunday looked like a washout with thunderstorms and lots of wind, however when the race began, we had no rain and a good Force 2 with occasional gusts Force 3 across the lake which decided to come from an Easterly direction which isn't the most favourable for HOAC.
35 sailors took to the water in Lasers, Toppers, Feva's and Tera's competing 4 races. The race officer team set an interesting Course around the lake and had 2 starts for the different fleets.
The first race got underway with the topper fleet starting first followed by the Feva's, Tera's & Laser's. The racers were joined by a HOAC Access Dinghy sailed by Malik, a HOAC youth disabled sailor who has been training over the winter and wanted to take part in his first race, however with no other Access dinghies to join him, decided to take part anyway and raced with the Feva fleet.
The morning racing had 2 races before lunch, apart from the Laser Fleet which was been dominated by Patrick Horsley (HOAC) it was anyone's guess who was leading as each fleet had a different race winner with positions changing all the time.
In the afternoon the course was changed slightly and 2 more races planned. All the fleets were changing positions during the afternoons racing and it was exciting for the on shore parents to watch. The Tera racing came down to a nail biting final race, Ben piped James to the finishing line in the Tera's giving him the win over all.
Overall Results:
Laser
1st Patrick Horsley (HOAC)
2nd David Lim (HOAC)
3rd Giles Hirst-Malin (HOAC)
Topper
1st Doug Brierley (Docklands Watersports)
2nd Raya Uzunova (Docklands Watersports)
3rd Curtis McKay (HOAC)
RS Feva
1st Ethan Gerrell & Alex Ellis-Thomas (King George & West Res)
2nd James Vic & Ben Ranson (Thamesmead YMCA)
3rd Emanule Nardini & Grace Canstant (HOAC)
RS Tera
1st Ben Lythgoe (HOAC)
2nd James Smaggasgale (HOAC)
3rd Andrew Robson (HOAC)
Next event in series: Saturday 17th May – King George SC