Team Racing at Spinnaker

(Link to BUSA Team Racing Calendar)

 

Spinnaker Club is the premier team racing club in the south of England . The RYA have designated our club as the “Centre of Excellence” for the sport in the south. Each year, mostly during the “closed season” in January and February, Spinnaker hosts a range of top ranking team racing events including; the European Inter-Club Open, the National Ladies Championships, the National Optimist Championships, the Wessex Winter Warmer plus other events.

In the last two years Spinnaker All Stars team racing team have won the RYA National Team Racing Championship representing Spinnaker Club. This team is made up of some senior British team racers who have largely stopped competing actively due to family commitments and relocation. However the team has put in many hours training at Spinnaker in the past and has many international medal experiences to refer back to. Nevertheless they are basically in retirement and there is a great opportunity to fill their shoes and become the Spinnaker Club team. And who knows in doing that the next steps could be very exciting. The New Forest Pirates who have also been based at Spinnaker and have many championships to their name have also now hung up their boots. So whilst the old guard have stood aside they would love to offer support to any enthusiastic young guns be that as advice or to spar against them. Southampton continue to consistently deliver the best results in both open and ladies University team racing. Affiliated groups Canford are active on the schools circuit as are the Army with inter-services racing. For the record, the Spinnaker All Stars won Bronze medals at the 2005 worlds in Newport Rhode Island after a tense battle with New Forest Pirates in the sail-off. The USA won Gold and Silver in their familiar Vanguards. The All Stars duo of Rob and Steve (crewed by Lynda ‘Speadie’ and Debs ‘The Colonel’ Kershaw)  represented GBR at the 2006 World Sailing Games gaining silver medal in the two boat team racing discipline sailed in 420’s on an Austrian lake.  There is some great racing to be done in the team racing world ….if you would like to get involved please talk to Tom Clay or Steve Tylecote. Steve puts his and his crew Toby Lewis’  Endeavour Trophy win in ‘07 down to his Spinnaker team racing experiences honing their boat on boat tactical skills and boat handling….they had raced together under the Spinnaker burgee in the Newport Worlds in 2005. No Spinnaker teams competed in the 2007 trials for the Worlds although the team members were active in supporting the training and selection process.

Spinnaker is home to Southampton University Sailing Club, whose mixed and ladies teams regularly feature in the top 4 in the country. This year the 1st six and their Ladies team both won the British Universities Championships. Other affiliated groups include Canford School who always do well at the schools championships.

Join in & have fun!

The club runs a number of junior teams under the guidance of Tom Clay . These juniors have a formidable reputation, beating many senior and university teams at competitions across the country.

Spinnaker has it’s own fleet of top quality matched boats for team racing which are available for members to use.

What is Team Racing?

For those new to this area of the sport, races are between two teams, and the winning team is the one with the lower total points score in the race (with 1 point for first, 2 for second and so on). Each helm can improve their team’s position during a race either by overtaking one of the opposition’s boats (which for most of us is quite hard) or, far more simply, by slowing down one of the opposition’s boats so that a team mate can overtake. A team racing event comprises a number of short races (typically only 10 to 12 minutes long) with carefully thought out courses to maximise the opportunities for team tactics.

The most common form of team racing is with teams of three boats. Two-boat team racing, where the team with the boat in last place loses is quite popular and is tactically simpler and useful as an introduction to the sport. Individual random two-boat team racing where you are allocated a partner at random for each race is fun and sociable.

Why do team racing?

Apart from being fun, team racing is an ideal way to sharpen up boat handling skills, close quarter tactics and rules awareness that will win you place after place in tight fleet races, particularly at marks and up that final beat to the finish line.

Ben Ainsle was taught Olympic Gold medal winning team racing tactics by our own Steve Tylecote at a training session before that Sydney Olympic cliff hanger.

Team racing has its own circuit of competitions (largely in the winter months when the usual open circuit for class fleet races is all but dead) where many of the events even provide the boats for you to sail, so there is no trailing your craft across the countryside.

Team racing is the main University sailing sport and our younger sailors who go on to University will have the advantage of being front runners to represent their college. The University sailing scene is fast, furious and fun. Many Spinnaker youngsters have been selected as captain of their University Team.

Spinnaker has it’s own fleet of top quality matched boats for team racing which are available for members to use.