RS400 Class Association Training at Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club
by Erica Caswell 6 Mar 10:43 GMT
1-2 March 2025
RS400 Class Association Training at Yorkshire Dales © Esther Parkhurst
The weekend of 1-2 March saw the last of three training weekends for RS400s and 200s, part-funded by an RS Class Association training grant and run by outstanding northern coaches and Endeavour winners, Ollie Groves and Esther Parkhurst, in pretty perfect conditions. This weekend was exclusively 400 sailors who enjoyed picking Ollie and Esther's brains on boat set up and techniques, particularly regarding the love 'em or hate 'em dreaded wing wangs!
Saturday morning saw sunshine and a gentle force 2 giving ideal conditions to settle in on the first session of improving gybing techniques with the classic gybing on the whistle exercise. The speed of Esther's whistle blowing getting noticeably faster as the morning went on, causing everybody to be throwing off the layers.
The afternoon saw the wind increase to force 3 as we worked on different types of spinnaker hoists -straight set, gybe hoist and gybe set. There was a lot of good banter and useful discussion during the video debriefs.
Entertainment and learning continued into the evening as the club hosted a 'racing rules' evening with guest speaker, international race officer, Mike Butterfield and tasty meal was provided by the excellent galley.
There were a few aching muscles on Sunday morning but that did not stop Ollie and Esther putting us through our paces doing five(!) different types of spinnaker drop. Everybody was, at times, on the edge of control in testing conditions gusting up to force 5, leading to a few capsizes.
The final afternoon culminated in a series of short races where we could put our newly honed skills together. The wind kindly dropped a bit allowing a really enjoyable, and to our relief, slightly less strenuous session.
A massive thank you to Ollie and Esther for their professional and insightful coaching. Everybody agreed it was a really worthwhile and informative weekend with improved stills throughout the fleet.