Derbyshire Youth Sailing Intercounty Event at Burton Sailing Club
by H. Baines 30 Apr 06:27 NZST
27 April 2024
Derbyshire Youth Sailing at Burton © Dave Sanderson
With a cold north easterly wind of 12-18 knots seasoned sailors in the Derbyshire Youth Series were excited to return to Burton Sailing Club for the Intercounty, second race of the series, on 27th April 2024.
Following a thorough briefing 24 sailors enthusiastically took to the water. The selection of vessels included Bytes both a classic and a Cii, 9 Toppers, 2 RS Tera's, 5 ILCA 6, an ILCA 7, 3 ILCA 4 and a National 12. A great tacking battle took place during the first race between an ILCA 6 Patrick Hill and ILCA 7 Luke Willshire but although the ILCA 7 eventually made it to the finish line first, the race was won by a Topper sailor, S. Baines.
Fantastic selections were offered for lunch by Burton's Galley team and the sailors enjoyed taking time to relax and discuss the mornings tactical encounters.
The afternoon saw close competition between the ILCA's and Byte Cii in the back-to-back races after lunch. Meanwhile the Topper sailors competed in their own mid-fleet race. Despite being a considerable distance apart when completing the races Patrick Hill and S. Baines had very few seconds separating their corrected times and their results kept the excitement building throughout the day.
Having such a well-positioned club house the parents and carers had a thoroughly engaging afternoon sat on comfy sofas and watching for surprising wind shifts and well-balanced gybes. Given the strength of the wind it was a credit to all the sailors that there were so few capsizes. Of particular note was the excellence of the National 12 sailors Hannah Sanderson and Gabrielle Wilkinson, who with very limited experience managed to handle the boat with considerable style and were awarded a spot prize for keeping the safety crews so joyfully engaged with apprehension.
Intercounty Guests from Leicestershire and Rutland Youth Sailing Association (LRYSA) made a very welcome return to the series competition having been unable to field a team in 2023. They all did extremely well too as they were new to travelling to other clubs, relatively inexperienced and demonstrated great tenacity throughout the day. A spot prize was won by the Classic Byte sailor Thomas Dale in recognition for his perseverance and character in challenging conditions. A final spot prize went to another new DYS sailor Eddison Izzard. Handling his Topper 4.2 with grit his last race took over an hour to complete and the Junior bronze medal was a well-deserved reward. It is a great encouragement that for the past two events there have been 6 sailors competing in the Junior category.
In a unique turn of events all the awards presented to first senior, first intermediate and first junior went to female sailors, S. Baines, Lily Hosty and Pavla Hrovat-Vernik respectively. The first Junior sailor did particularly well as it was her first DYS event too. S. Baines was also awarded overall winner for the Burton event and a trophy for the Intercounty Championship too. Overall, the sailors and carers enjoyed a superbly organised event and will be looking forward to the next race in the series, to be held at Errwood on 11th May. For more information and registration, please visit our website www.dysailing.org