Nacra 15 Winter Training Camp 2 at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy
by Grace Buckley & Matthew Emerson 21 Nov 11:08 NZDT
16-17 November 2024
Nacra 15 Winter Training Camp 2 at Weymouth © Charles Patterson
Nacra 15 Winter Camp 2, took place at WPNSA over the weekend on November 16/17. With this being the first camp after the World Championships in Barcelona, all teams were ready to reflect on lessons learnt as we prepare for the international events upcoming in 2025.
Both the British Youth Sailing Team squad and Class group were met in the morning by their respective coaches: Theo and Jas Williams. After gaining an insight to what the weekend would hold the groups split off into squad and class and discussed the different activities we would complete; with the main focus of the weekend being around starts.
Everyone launched at 11.45 on Saturday with the Class doing a couple of tuning runs, up and down wind whilst making our way out of the harbour avoiding any 29er and Feva racers.
When out in the harbour Jas set up a pin where we had la 3 minute rolling start, trying to win first the committee then the middle of the line then the pin. With the final start being a race to the windward mark. We completed this many times before coming together with the Squad to put more boats on the line allowing more pressure. A short line was placed in to allow boat on boat situations.
Many battles between teams on the line, pushing hard to get off the line first. After lots of starts we shifted our focus onto the moments after our starts, linking into racing. We had one lap races to keep racing tight and that saw all different boats leading races at points. As the day went on, the wind picked up. This made the racing really interesting.
For the final race of the day we had aspiring Nacra 15 sailor Coral jump onto 126 with helm Matt. It was fair to say in the strong breeze we had in the final race and for the sail back in, she experienced the best part of the Nacra 15 and she came ashore beaming!
On Sunday, the Squad and Class trained together with their first activity being a decision mark to help us focus on decisions being made going upwind. Every boat had to pass the decision mark before they got to the windward mark. Decision mark was seen as a gust or a lift. After completing a few of these activities we moved onto a series of racing, where again many boats took the lead at various points in the afternoon.
We all enjoyed a fun blast reach back into the harbour and are looking forward to our next camp at Weston Sailing Club on 30th November/1st December.
If you're interested in trying out the Nacra 15 you can request a taser session.
Or see details of our training and racing programme for the next year.