Cambridgeshire Youth League at Grafham Water Sailing Club
by Hilary Talbot 5 Jun 12:49 BST
1 June 2024
Competitors during the Cambridgeshire Youth League event at Grafham Water SC © Paul Sanwell / OPP
Grafham Water Sailing Club hosted the second event in the 2024 Cambridgeshire Youth Sailing League on Saturday 1st June. The event is open to youth members of the 5 participating sailing clubs: Cam, Ely, Grafham, Hunts and Paxton.
The 30 sailors were greeted with unseasonably cold and windy conditions, causing most of the ILCA sailors to downsize to 4.7 rigs and many of the Toppers to reef down.
The fleet went afloat for race 1 with the onshore wind at 17 knots and gusts up to 25 knots. The start was split into three flights, with places on handicap combined into one set of results. The race officer had laid a trapezoid course, with an upwind gate allowing results to be calculated on average lap time, given the wide disparity of speed between the fastest (ILCA7) and slowest (Optimist) boats. Competition at the front of the fleet was very keen, with one minute of corrected time separating the first three places: Kieran Vanhoutte of Ely SC in an ILCA4, Tim Evans of GWSC in an ILCA7 and Adele Burbidge of GWSC in an ILCA4.
Behind these three, again one minute of corrected time separated the next three boats, all Toppers: Edward Human of Ely SC, Freddie Reeves of GWSC and Edward Millet of Cam SC. Further down the fleet there were many capsizes and the smaller and younger competitors did very well to finish the race. Several of them had never before sailed on such a large piece of open water as Grafham Water.
After lunch the wind had dropped a little and some of the Toppers took out their reefs. Competition at the front remained close, with less than three minutes separating the top five boats in both races 2 and 3. The finishing order of these five was the same in both the afternoon races with local sailor Tim Evans taking first, followed by Adele, Kieran, Skye Collard of Grafham, also sailing an ILCA4, and Edward Human.
This meant that the event was won by Tim, with two firsts. Adele and Kieran were tied on 4 points each, with Kieran taking second place due to his first place in race 1 and Adele finishing third overall.
The team prize is calculated using the best three results in each race by members of each club and was won by Grafham Water SC with a total of 24 points, contributed to by Tim Evans, Adele Burbidge, Skye Collard and Freddie Reeves.
Awards in the Under 15 and Under 12 categories gave a chance for those further down the rankings to win prizes, with Topper sailors Edward Human from Ely SC who was 5th overall taking 1st Under 15, Samual Rule from Grafham 2nd Under 15, Isaac Wilcox from Hunts SC 1st Under 12 and Mushui Zuo from Grafham 2nd Under 12.
The prize for the youngest competitor went to 9-year-old Michael Hatton of Ely SC sailing a Topper. The Endeavour prize was awarded by the race management team to Dotty West of Cam SC sailing an Optimist. Congratulations to all the sailors who battled very taxing conditions, with most of them completing all three races.
The event results can be found here and the Youth League results so far here.
More photographs of the event can be viewed here.
Grafham Water SC is based in Cambridgeshire and offers some of the best inland sailing in the country. With an RYA training school and active Youth section, the club is open to all classes of boat with strong fleets of Dart 15s, A-class catamarans, ILCAs, Solos, D-Zeros, RSs and Flying Fifteens. For more information about the club please visit the website at www.grafham.org or call the club on 01480 810478. Follow the club on Facebook.