The annual round of British student sailing championships – team, match and yacht racing – started last week with the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Match Racing Championships 2013. Organised by British Universities’ Sailing Association (BUSA), in conjunction with the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), twelve teams, representing Bristol, Cambridge, Durham (2), Exeter, Imperial, Newcastle, Plymouth (2), Portsmouth, Southampton and Southampton Solent, raced for four days on Portland Harbour at Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy in the RYAs fleet of Elliot 6m yachts.
For full report – drawing on Nigel Vick’s daily posts and RO Richard Kingsnorth’s summing up and with some of their photos – go to Solent are 2013 Match Racing Champions.
‘The BUSA Match Racing Champions 2013 are Southampton Solent University – Philip Bendon helming, with Bruno Van Dyke & Chris Tiernan. Despite going two down in the first-to-3 points Final, Philip raised his game to overcome an OCS in Match 3, setting up a thrilling deciding fifth race. In this Solent took Plymouth 1 high above the start line. Plymouth tried getting the kite up and, had it set, it could have been a different story – as it was Solent led off the line. However, a failure to cover in the light breeze, let Plymouth through on the second beat. But, again, a poor spinnaker host cost the Plymouth team (Dan Wray, Mathew Haslam, Jack Kilburn), and it was Solent first and Plymouth second at the finish.’
1 Southampton Solent (Philip Bendon, Bruno Van Dyke, Chris Tiernan)
2 Plymouth 1 (Dan Wray, Mathew Haslam, Jack Kilburn)
3 Portsmouth (Tim Carter, Fergus Barnham, James Vineer)
4 Bristol (Nick Wilkinson, Phil Sparks, Oliver Nainby-Luxmore)
5 Durham 1 (Ed Harrison, Konrad Weaver, Ed Thomas)
6 Exeter (Jason Saints, Thomas Brophy, Alice Butler)
7 Cambridge (Jack Davies, Matt Deacon-Smith, Honor Fell)
8 Plymouth 2 (Andrew Sinclair, Joe Cross, Dom Silman)
9 Southampton (Tom Harrison, Conrad Manning, Jonty Cook)
10 Imperial (Nicholas Lake, Josh Simcock, Maciej Adler)
11 Durham 2 (Tom Quigley, James Cunnison, Ian Cook)
12 Newcastle (Sean Whelan, Francesca Tagliaferri, Harry Frith)