Report by ELLIE HIDE

After the carnage that was West Lancs, we started the weekend at Beaver by finding out that the girls changing rooms were being redone and so we had to get changed in the ROD box at the top of a steep ladder which was a new experience! And also with a quick reminder of rules, to prevent a repeat of the previous weekend, which had ended up costing a few parents due to repairs. Oops. We were gratefully joined by team Grayson who it had to be said were ever so good! Saturday morning was light about 6mph but we got straight on with our weekends objective, upwind strategy, by doing various exercises such as buddy beats, twin windward marks and aiming for 9.1 to help us think about favoured sides of the beat , boat on boat tactics and quickest route to the windward mark taking into account the shifts. We ended the day with taking and gibing on the whistle and the key word ‘smooth’ deeply imbedded into our minds.

Sunday was the opposite, weather wise as it blew about 18mph and rained, we kick started the day with some *intensive* fitness and after a PowerPoint about tactics and strategy and an embarrassing display of an old photo we headed out and immediately encountered a capsize off the jetty from Tom and George. We started with a figure of eight (so Dave could get some good reaching action shots for an article) and also to improve our soaking technique while reaching, which also involved a few capsizes and bent burgees, which was followed by a potentially disastrous exercise, colliding coaches, so named for obvious reasons! We finished the weekend as tradition with a series of races however this time we were sailing a trapezoid course. Which brought with it a number of capsizes including on the start-line and tight reaches (keeping Dave happy with some dramatic shots of speed!) with Scott and Adam coming of top on count back after an impressive performance and a very good port end flyer! Who were closely followed by Will and Emma and in third Chloe and Izzy.

Thank you to the Graysons and beaver sailing club for hosting such a great weekend, and also to Dave and Adam for a fun weekends coaching