Northern Youth Squad YDSC

Northern Youth Squad YDSCRS200 Youth Squad weekend – Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club 14/15^th November

The first ever RS200 Northern Youth Squad weekend was held at Yorkshire Dales SC last weekend; after a casual yet testing selection weekend a few weeks previous, we were all very excited for the weekend ahead where we could properly get to know each other and start training.

We arrived on Saturday morning to a steady 12/13kts, so we eagerly rigged and met in the clubhouse for morning briefing with our coach Adam Savage, and Mike Saul who was filling in for Martin Penty, the assistant coach who couldn’t make it on Saturday. We played a few team/partnership building games (one involving intertwining pieces of rope which is yet to be solved!), and then went through the plan for the day. Our main focus for the weekend was trying to improve/perfect tacking and gybing and boat handling skills- on an email sent out just before the squad weekend we were asked to discuss our strengths/weaknesses- and focus on any weak points.

We then got out on the water and did several exercises which focused on tacks and gybes, such as ‘elephant ears’, the diamond exercise and tacking/gybing on the whistle. In the afternoon we looked at gate starts- the RS association uses these a lot so the coaches thought practise at these would be invaluable to our fleet racing. We did a new exercise that Adam had made up which started with a gate start, then the most leeward boat in the fleet had to tack and weave their way through the fleet to become the most windward boat, then the next leeward boat would do the same until we ran out of room. It took a while for us to pick it up but by the end we were all getting the hang of gate starts and successfully weaving through the fleet.

Due to a forecast of very high winds on Sunday we decided to get in our squad races on Saturday whilst we had wind. A simple windward leeward with 2 laps saw Alistair Scott/ Charlotte Scott take the win, closely followed by Sam Waller/ George Stainforth and Emma Clayton/ Faye Caswell. In the second race we cut it short to 1 lap and headed in due to most of the fleet losing feeling in their hands and feet, but Rachel Grayson/Emma Grayson won, with Sam Waller/ George Stainforth second and Ollie Groves/ Esther Parkhurst Third.

After sailing we were given our squad jackets provided by Gill, our RS sailing beanies, squad boat stickers and Neil Pryde sailing boat stickers which were a hit from all- I seemed to have lived in my new jacket since I got it! Saturday evening consisted of a delicious meal by the club galley for those who stayed and a great social. I felt slightly sorry for those in campervans that night with the 50+ mph winds and constant driving rain all night…

The anemometer on Sunday morning had gusts of 48kts so sailing was sensibly called off until we could see a significant drop in wind speed! Emma Grayson, one of our squaddies who studies sport science at university did an indoor fitness session with us which focused on different core, arm and leg muscle strength exercises- we were definitely feeling it by the end! After cooling down we headed outside to look at boat setup and tuning. Adam and Martin gave us some useful tips and tweaks that could help us with using our dynamic controls (kicker, outhaul, downhaul etc.), and also a few setup readings he has from a friend (mast rake, rig tension, spreader length and deflection) which were super useful especially for the more experienced partnerships. Sunday then consisted of lots of theory and video analysis from the previous day- it was interesting seeing how some people sailed their 200’s differently to others and also seeing the change in technique as the wind dropped throughout the day. We ended up cutting the day short due the decision made by the coaches not to sail on Sunday. It was a very difficult decision to call due to an almost 50/50 split between the squad on whether we wanted to go out or not, but with heavy flooding from the local rivers bursting their banks meaning some roads were starting to become inaccessible and the knowledge that here were less experienced/ confident sailors in the squad who would not be able to cope with the conditions, it was the right decision to make to head home early.

Despite not being able to sail both days I would say the reaction from the squad was still positive and everyone really enjoyed themselves- I would even say the time off the water was good for us to bond as a group and make friends on the first weekend!

A big thankyou to our coaches Mike, Martin and Adam for some great quality coaching, to Elise and Erica for co-ordinating the squad and organising the weekend, I personally know how much time and effort they have put in to making sure everything ran as smoothly as possible for us! Also thankyou to our squad sponsors RS sailing & Neil Pryde (+ Gill for the gorgeous jackets), and Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club & their excellent galley for having us!

Faye Caswell