Following on for the success of the Youth Keelboating Weekend at Port Edgar, the qualifying teams travelled south for the finals of the British Keelboat League at Royal Southern Yacht Club on the Hamble over the weekend of the 1/2nd of October.
An overall result of second place for Strathclyde University Sailing Club delighted the sponsor, A-Plan Insurance, with a race DSQ holding them back from the overall win for the series.
Strathclyde University Sailing Club and Lunga Sailing Club were assisted by A-Plan Marine Insurance and RYA Scotland to go to the British Keelboat League Finals, being sailed in the RS21 class keelboats. In the end a third of the fleet were from Scotland, as the tartan titans of Team Taylor, a mash up of Scottish Student Sailing alumni, and The Royal Northern And Clyde had teams entered.
Jake Miller of Strathclyde University Sailing Club
“What a weekend! Blown off on Friday, 28 knot gusts on Saturday, nae puff on Sunday, glorious sunshine, and torrential rail; the #BKL final delivered it all. The competition was fierce with boat handling and consistency being the key to success. Unfortunately it took us the first three races to dial in the boat handling bit but from then on we seized every opportunity to maximise points wherever we could; starting clean and picking the right risk vs. reward manoeuvres.
“Despite not finishing the whole schedule the race committee persevered and did a fantastic job to get in as many races as they did. As students, we love the #rockupandrace format; it gives us the opportunity to take part in competitive one design racing against incredibly good sailors from around the country and best of all we got to know these sailors and make new friends.”
Jake goes onto say.
“We would like to take this time to say a massive, massive thank you to A-plan insurance and RYA Scotland. Without whom we would not have been able to attend the event. The funding from A-plan and hard work put in behind the scenes from RYAS to make sure we travelled down safely and had somewhere to sleep in Hamble is hugely appreciated and we hope we did you proud. Thank you to everyone involved in running the Final; the race committee, mark layers, umpires, hotel boat owners, all the staff at the Royal Southern, and anyone else we may have missed. We had a fantastic time and we highly encourage anyone interested to get involved in the BKL next year, we will be back!”
For the team from Lunga SC it was their first time in the RS21’s and were very happy with their result after their 13 races in the finals. Most of the team are still at school and this was a great chance to get into fast keelboat racing.
Christine Woods Team Lunga SC said.
“Everyone really enjoyed the event, particularly the opportunity to sail in a really competitive fleet. Positions changed all the time, where you could be first at the windward mark and 5th at the bottom mark, it was really tight.”
“The first day on the water was pretty breezy and the team loved flying downwind. At first we were not sure if we should put the kite up, but we just went for it. The lighter condist We learnt about penalties, one for leaving the pole out upwind, and we were consistently fourth, only finishing last in one race.”
“Definitely want to do more racing like that again next year and we are looking into how we can get involved in some of the one design racing back in Scotland.”
For full results visit here.
