Last weekend the BUSA Ladies Match Racing team travelled to La Rochelle, on the French Atlantic coast, to compete in the Women’s University Match Racing Cup. The team consisted of Charlotte Lawrence from Edinburgh on the helm, Mary Rook from Exeter (mainsheet), Colette Blair from Southampton (jib), Lauren Martel from Bath (bow) and Ali Haylett from Bristol (pit).
Our trip started somewhat eventfully, with a missed flight and some excess baggage issues but eventually the whole team made it to La Rochelle. We spent the first day of our trip doing some much needed training, as most of us had little experience in the Beneteau first class 8s we were to be sailing and we hadn’t sailed as a team before.
The first day of the competition started very positively for us, with a convincing win against the top seeded team, helmed by Silke Hallebroek from Germany, followed by a loss against the UK 1st team, helmed by Gemma Farrell with Bethan Carden from Cambridge University on mainsheet, making up the numbers of bonafide students at the event. Unfortunately our luck took a turn for the worse at this point, when we had a collision in our next race, against the Irish team, and were deducted 1 point for damage after a marginal umpire decision. However, we did manage to keep our damage deposit due to Charlotte’s sincere apology in flawless French! We then learnt that we would have to resail our victorious race against the German team due to a problem with the keel of their boat, putting us on minus 1 point at the end of the first day.
The second day of racing started with strong winds and, despite some very close racing, we were still on -1 at lunchtime. However, with the wind dying off slightly in the afternoon we were able to use our lack of weight to our advantage and secure 2 wins, against Sweden 1 and France 2, thankfully putting us back on positive points! That evening, to coincide with Eurovision, the event organisers had asked each team to come up with a musical offering to perform at the dinner. Both British teams put on a fantastic show, with Gemma’s team singing ‘Hakuna Matata’ from the Lion King, and us singing S Club 7’s ‘Reach’, which we felt accurately summed up our feelings and was easily the best performance of the evening.
On the last day we were first out on the water to sail our final round robin race before the final stages. We thought it seemed slightly ominous when the, normally gung-ho, organisers suggested 2 reefs, small jibs and no spinnakers and we were proved right when, on leaving the harbour, we were greeted by a 40 knot storm! Needless to say, even the French couldn’t run a match race in that much wind and unfortunately racing was cancelled for the day.
We finished in 9th place, with the other British team finishing in 2nd, after losing narrowly to the German team. However, we got special mentions from the organisers for being the happiest, most smiley team and, of course, for our amazing singing! All in all we had an amazing time, with some great match racing and socialising, all facilitated by the fantastic hospitality shown to us by the organisers at the University of La Rochelle. We are already looking forward to the prospect of going back next year!
BUSA Ladies heading to La Rochelle
8th May 2007
This weekend the BUSA Ladies team are going to La Rochelle to compete in the 3rd Women’s University Match Racing European Cup, hosted by the University of La Rochelle. Charlotte Lawrence (Edinburgh University), Mary Rook (Exeter University), Colette Blair (Southampton University), Lauren Martel (Bath University) and Ali Haylett (Bristol University) will spend 3 days battling it out with the best university teams from across Europe, including one other British entry, helmed by Gemma Farrell.
Follow how they do by visiting the event website: