11th-13th April 2007

The Team Racing Championships were held during the week following Easter, hosted by the University of Birmingham at Bartley Sailing Club. During probably the warmest week of the year to date, thirty-four teams descended on Birmingham for the pinnacle of the university team racing calendar. Unfortunately, though the organisers had booked brilliant sunshine, no-one seemed to have invited any wind, at any rate, the wind arrived fashionably late.

Racing had been due to commence at ten o’clock on the Wednesday, but the rather tame breeze refused to settle, forcing postponement until mid-afternoon. In the meantime, the competitors made the most of the ‘kids’ club’ opportunities, sunbathing to the sounds of the event DJ and catching up on the social of the night before. When racing did get underway, the weather only enabled four races to be completed before the day’s sailing was called off.

Following a social in Birmingham’s city centre, racing was planned to start at nine-thirty the following morning. Again, the sun was a welcome guest but a further delay was needed before the wind stabilised enough from the northwest. It was going to be necessary to complete the initial league stages in order to make progressing to the standard knock-out phases possible; the loss of the gold and silver stage brought some intriguing conundrums as to how the event format might proceed.

On the water, the top seeds all raced well, rising to the top of their respective leagues. Oxford 1 were victorious in all of their mixed-league races while Cambridge 1 and Southampton 1 had to fight harder to win their own leagues. Southampton’s ladies took the ladies’ round-robin by storm, winning all of their races. Racing on this second day finished shortly before five o’clock and there remained some sixteen races to run before the scheduled leagues would be completed and knock-out competition could start.

Friday morning dawned with conditions still looking slow and the outlook was rather less sunny too. Following a ball at Villa Park, some of those present did resemble the weather, but the leagues were completed with time for mixed quarter finals and ladies’ semi finals. Following a sail-off for the last two quarter final places, Edinburgh and Exeter joined Bristol, Cambridge, London, Oxford and two Southampton teams in the last eight of the mixed competition. All the quarter finals were won convincingly by two races to none, but not before a protest was lodged and then thrown out in the match between Exeter and Cambridge.

In the ladies’ competition, racing looked close to the form of the round robin stage, with Southampton and Oxford beating Edinburgh and Cambridge respectively. The first mixed semi final saw Bristol dispatch Oxford, the early front-runners, in two races, while Southampton needed three races to beat Exeter and claim their place in the final.

Southampton’s ladies were beaten in the second race of their final against Oxford, but it remained their only loss during the event and they duly defended the BUSA Trophy. Bristol then needed just two races to defeat Southampton and win back the Thompson Trophy having lost it at last year’s championships.

Thanks are due from the organisers of Birmingham to Bristol, Exeter, Nottingham, Warwick, London and Southampton for the use of their Fireflies. And for their expertise and other equipment to Martin Smethers, Alan Guy, West Kirby, Spinnaker, Oxford Schools, Sevenoaks, and Peter Johnson’s umpiring team. The combination of which enabled the event to be such a success.

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