Perfect winds greeted us on the Saturday at WKSC, as 17 teams from across the UK met for the Big Lash; jointly hosted this year between Liverpool and Manchester Universities for the first time. Three flights of fireflies were used to complete 148 races over the weekend; alongside two great socials in Liverpool.
We completed a full round robin, which saw a stand-in West Kirby team winning all of their 16 races to top the league. However they elected not to compete in finals, and so Liverpool and Sheffield Old Boys, Shalumni and West Kirby Youth met for best-of-three semi finals. Sheffield Old Boys and the WK team were victorious and so met for a closely met final, in which age and experience won as SOBs won both races. Liverpool and Shalumni then fought it out for third place, winning one apiece before a close win by Shalumni to finish the day in third place. Many Unis commented on how efficiently the sailing was run and the fact we started on time both days!
Manchester and Liverpool universities would like to the West Kirby Sailing Club, all the umpires, helpers, club members and sailors for making the event a huge success, and look forward to expanding the event next year. Actual quote: “Carlsberg don’t do sailing events, but if they did it would be much like this weekend!”
Results:
1st ? Sheffield Old Boys
2nd ? West Kirby Youth
3rd ? Shalumni
4th ? Liverpool University
5th ? Manchester Old Boys
6th ? Nottingham University
7th ? Manchester University
8th ? Bristol 3
9th ? Sheffield 1
10th ? Bristol 4
11th ? York 1
12th ? Sheffield 2
13th ? York 2
14th ? York Old Boys
15th ? Reading 3
16th ? Reading 4