Inter Services Team Racing Championships
Published 16:56 on 1 May 2024
Simon Horsfield reports on the 2024 Inter Services Team Racing Championships, held on 24-26 April with a robust smattering of Emsworth representatives from Matt Sargent (Army B), Charlie South (Royal Navy B) and Simon Horsfield taking control as Race Officer.
The 14-strong team of (Royal Navy) RN sailors arrived at Bowmoor Sailing Club a day early for some training to develop boat speed, tactics, and to establish pairings.
Day 1 of racing saw some very mixed conditions, from hail through to sunshine, and 45-degree wind shifts, which made things difficult for the race team and competitors alike. Ultimately the wind switched off mid-afternoon leading to an early finish. Despite the tricky conditions, both the RN A and B teams came out on top of the first round robin - RN A with 5 wins from 5 races sailed, whilst the RN B team won 4 out of their 6 races.
Friday's forecast, an 8-knot north easterly, was far more stable though there were still plenty of wind shifts to make gains from. After 2 round robins both the RN A and B teams qualified for their respective finals, to sail against the Army A and B teams.
Race one of the B Cup Final was taken by the Army after they won the pre-start battle, meaning the RN would have to win the remaining two races. In the second race there was lots of confusion at the start as 3 boats were called over, 4 boats decided to return to the start. The RN later managed to compress the fleet with a mark trap, and skilfully converted this into a winning combination, taking the second race to square the final up 1-1. The deciding race was very much edge-of-the-seat racing, an interesting start with a port - starboard infringement gave the RN the edge at the windward mark. After a titanic battle at the second windward mark, the RN managed to pull out into 1/2/3 resulting in RN B team win. The team were strong throughout the regatta and were well deserved winners for the 8th year in a row.
The A Cup Final got off to a fantastic start with race 1 won pretty much as the start gun sounded, the Army were left in 4,5,6. The RN never looked in any danger finishing in a 1,2,3.
Race 2 went the way of the Army as one of the RN was called over at the start and didn't go back, so was scored OCS adding 10 points to the mid-afternoon finishing result.
The wind dropped for the final and deciding race, which made things very tense up the first beat. However, after some great teamwork mid-way through the race, the RN pulled away into a convincing lead, and ran away as worthy race winners sealing their 8th consecutive win at the inter-services championship.
Massive thanks to Tom Whittingham, all the team at Bowmoor Sailing Club and Nova Systems for sponsoring this event.
Photo: The winning Royal Navy teams at the Inter Service Team Racing championships, included Charlie South [fifth from left]