Representing BUSA Ladies this year were Jo Brigg, Nicky Macgregor, Sophie Harrison, Penny Jeffcoate, Anneka Smith and Maria Stanley from Southampton, Bournemouth, , and West of England Universities.
Despite a dismal forecast with lots of rain, 32 teams arrived on the Friday night eager for the weekend to start, including teams from , , and the to take on the Brits.
Saturday morning arrived with a perfect 10knots of breeze, the rain holding off and even a little unexpected sunshine, but unfortunately BUSA Ladies didn’t have such a great start to the event up against two of the top American teams. Throughout the morning the wind started to die off, rain clouds were looming and some of the shifts left for interesting races, but we were able to take advantage of these lighter conditions. Having noticed one of these big left shifts off the start line first, we took a convincing 1,2,3 win over our rivals and only other Ladies team in the competition, Society Ladies. Two unfortunate losses later, we found our form and a winning streak held out almost until the end of the day, beating in a comfortable 1,2,6, Horning in 2,3,4 and RAFSA in 1,2,4. The final race of the day, against the Gremlins, with two of our team’s younger sisters in proved to be the closest race of the day with everything to play for up the final beat, but having been forced to finish in 2 and 3, the 3rd boat was converted and held back into 6th place.
That evening, as usual a great night was had by all, and the race schedule had worked in our favour giving a small but ‘oh so important’ lie in on Sunday morning. We drove down to the sailing club passing Castaways, our first race, at the top of the hill and not going anywhere fast, feeling surprisingly good having been fed and watered by our fantastic hosts and each with our own bed. Luckily for them, Castaways not only just made the race but also beat us after we didn’t quite manage to hold our 1,4,5 to the finish, ending up in 1,5,6. This loss was quickly followed by another to Southampton 2, but we pulled ourselves together to beat McGill in our most impressive 1,2,3 finish of the event and then finished the weekend with a great race against Sheffield in which we managed to turn a desperate looking 1,5,6 into a 1,3,5 with a big move on the last mark, a bit of carnage and some fast sailing!! All in all we were happy to finish with 6 wins and 8 losses, equal to many of our University rivals.
Thanks to West Kirby Sailing Club and all its members for yet another fantastic Wilson and to BUSA for sending ussome great sailing and a lot of fun!
If you are interested in doing any sailing for BUSA Ladies next year or just want to know a bit more about it then send Jo Brigg, Ladies Captain, an email to jlb204@soton.ac.uk.