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And the Manx Youth Sailing Squad report made it on the the Yachts and Yachting website!

We think this is the first time Manx sailing has actually made it onto their homepage (be it only for a day or so – we were there!)

RS Tera national coach Jonathan Lewis visited the Island on 14th & 15th November to run a training weekend for members of the Manx Youth Sailing Squad. Five squad members were recently invited to join the 2010 GBR RS Tera Squad, they will to represent Great Britian and the Isle of Man at the RS Tera World Championship next summer.

Manx sailors impressed RS coaches at the RS Tera National Championship in September when the Manx Youth Sailing Squad brought home the National Team Champions Trophy. Based on their performances at the Nationals the 2010 GBR RS Tera Squad will include Manx sailors Amie Shute (age 12), Izzy Sharpe (13), Hannah Howitt (14), James Kelly (13) and Greg Kelly (11).

The squad were due to attend training in the UK throughout the winter although owing to the logistical difficulties of travelling from the Island it was suggested that coach Jonathan Lewis came to Island to provide two intensive training sessions this winter. Squad members will travel to Draycote in March to attend a UK training session for the full GBR RS Tera Squad.

The Isle of Man Yacht Club was the venue for this training session and the Manx weather provided plenty of wind throughout the weekend. Despite the conditions the team were out on the water on both days. Every member of the Squad sailed superbly all weekend and demonstrated their ability in the strong winds and big waves. Jonathan spent most of the weekend working with the sailors to improve their technique, particularly downwind work, sailing in waves, boat setup and race tuning.

Jonathan Lewis made an excellent impression on the young sailors and each member of the team responded to him well. He even suggested in his final debrief of the weekend that “we could have a potential world champion here”.

The Manx Youth Sailing Squad was formed in 2008. The team has consistently produced good results at a national level. Training is given by local coaches Phil Hardisty, Don Edwards, Rob Cowell and Jenni Quillin. Boats and training facilities are provided by 7th Wave RYA Training Centre in Port Erin. The Manx Youth Sailing Squad is now actively seeking funding to support the team with their GBR Squad Training and RS Tera World Championship campaigns.

Our next course for VHF Short Range Certificate will be on Saturday 14th November from 9am until 5pm.

The course provides practical experience of using a VHF Radio set fitted with Digital Selective Calling. Content covered during course includes licensing requirements, radio etiquette, distress procedures, marine band channels, DSC and GMDSS information. This course is one full day in duration, there is a short exam at the end of the day, successful candidates will receive the VHF Radio licence.

Fee: £99 per person plus an additional payment of £25 to the RYA for issue of the license.

We still have a handful of places available on this course, if you would like to attend please contact us.

Already it is that time of year and we are now taking bookings for next year’s Youth Sailing Weeks.

The format of our Youth Sailing Weeks will remain unchanged, the Weeks will run during all school holidays from Easter, including TT fortnight and during the summer from 5th July until the kids go back to school for the autumn term in September. Each course is five full days; Monday to Friday from 10am until 5pm every day. As usual we will provide all the kit with the exception of footwear and lunch.

We would like to try and match up students of similar abilities for each week. If you are able to give us a choice of which weeks your youngsters can attend that would be very helpful to us.

For students who have completed Stage 4 we are able to offer RYA certified courses in Sailing With Spinnakers, Day Sailing (taking short dinghy cruises), Seamanship Skills and Start Racing.

The course fee is £265 per person. At this stage we are asking for a deposit of £85 in order to confirm your booking. If you would like more information about these courses or to book a place please contact me.

Please remember we were fully booked by March last year, we strongly advise booking early to avoid disappointment.

The Topper Challenge was held in very windy conditions on the Mooragh Park last Sunday. Five teams competed with entries from the Venture Centre, 7th Wave, Manx Sailing & Cruising Club, Isle of Man Yacht Club and King William’s College. Each team consisted of three members all aged 16 and under, boats and safety boats were provided by the Venture Centre.

For the last three years this event has been sailed in light winds, but this year, as Jon Quillin (7th Wave) commented “we seem to have had four years worth of wind in one competition!” It certainly made for an interesting day particularly for the spectators as competitors bravely battled around the course trying to avoid capsizing in the big gusts. Given the conditions the race organisers insisted that each boat set off with at least two reefs in the sail, although four reefs seemed to be the favourite option.

A total of ten races were sailed which allowed each team to race every other team once. The finishing position of each competitor was recorded and each team’s points were combined. The team with the lowest cumlative points in a race was the winner of that race. The overall winners were the team winning the most races.

There was some excellent sailing during the day, with notable individual performances from Harriet Quayle age 14 (IOMYC), Izzy Sharpe age 13 (KWC), plus Sarah Mercer age 14 (IOMYC) and Ffinlo Wright age 10 (KWC) both of whom struggled in the windy conditions but continued racing with determination.

The team performances showed a big change from previous years. It was the Venture Centre and the MS&CC who were looking favourites for the competition in the early stages. Race 3 between the Venture Centre and MS&CC was the first race in which all the competitors managed to finish, clearly the northerners were more practised in the huge gusts hitting Mooragh Lake. There was some superbly close racing and a couple of finishes where there were only millimetres seperating the boats.

The final race of the day between 7th Wave and the Venture Centre was to be the deciding race. MS&CC had completed all their races with three wins and one loss which meant that if the Venture Centre beat 7th Wave the MS&CC would be the winners of the Topper Challenge Trophy for the first time since the competition began in 1994. 7th Wave were also counting three wins at the start of the final race. James Kelly age 13 (7th Wave) and Alex Sharpe age 16 (7th Wave) sailed a good race with both of them rounding the windward mark in 1st and 2nd and keeping those places to the finish and giving 7th Wave the win for the race and for the overall competition.

Nigel Hendy presented the trophy to 7th Wave’s team Alex Sharpe, James Kelly and Greg Kelly for the third year running.

Results:
1st: 7th Wave (Alex Sharpe, James Kelly, Greg Kelly)
2nd: MS&CC (Juan Hendy, Theo Leech, Conor Christian)
3rd: Venture Centre (Amie Shute, Matt Reed, Jack Shields)
4th: IOMYC (Harriet Quayle, Sarah Mercer, Jacques Lakeman)
5th: King William’s College (Izzy Sharpe, Kunal Patel, Ffinlo Wright)

Back in May we held our 7th Wave heats for the Honda / RYA Youth RIB Challenge. From a total of 13 entrants six were selected to represent 7th Wave at the IOM Regional Finals. There were two age groups for age 12 and under and another for age 13 – 16 year olds. Alex Sharpe, Giles Bath and Alastair Bath were the fastest three in the age 13 – 16 group. James Kelly, Lucy Gregg and Fraser Grant finished at the quickest three respectively in the 12 and unders.

The IOM Regional Finals were held at the IOMYC. This year each age group was won by a 7th Wave representative! Alex Sharpe won the 13 – 16s and Lucy Gregg won the age 12 and unders (although she also scored a quicker time than Alex!)

Lucy and Alex are off to Southampton Boatshow this weekend to compete in the national final of the Honda / RYA Youth RIB Challenge. We wish them both the best of luck and hope that you all have a really good time at the show.

Here we are suddenly in September and I’m asking myself where the last 8 weeks of youth sailing have gone. We must have been having so much fun we missed it! This summer has been great, every week has been enjoyed by both students and staff. We’ve even had a few firsts here this summer. Alex, Tom, Izzy and Hannah have been the first to complete a Sailing with Spinnakers course, we had a great week in the 420s with spinnakers and trapezes being used and a basking shark or two as well!

James and Greg went away to compete at the RS Tera European Championships at Lake Garda, Italy. Greg finished 3rd in the under 12s and James finished 6th in the age 12 – 16 fleet.

We also had some amazing bodyboarding days – so good that even the instructing team were in enjoying the waves. Watch out for James’ amazing body surfing too!!

Alex went for the RYA Dinghy Instructor course at Plas Menai, Anglesey in August and successfully passed the course. Congratulations Alex, we look forward to getting you on the instructing team next summer.

And there is was gone. 2009 one the whole a good summer. Thanks to everyone who has been involved.

We are now three weeks into our summer Youth Sailing Weeks. Week one was a fairly windy week for Chess and Ffinlo but despite the weather Chess acheived her RYA Stage 1 certificate and Ffinlo managed to get a few more of his Seven Stars challenges signed off.

Week two was a busy week with nine kids altogether. Sarah Butler, Annabel Chapman, Giles and Alastair Bath all acheived their RYA Stage 3 award and showed some excellent sailing in the 420s during the week. They even had them sailing backwards and cruising about the bay sailing without the rudders!

The Tera sailing team also had a super week. George Blackwell, Max Tittle and Ellie Tittle all flew through the Stage 1 award and got a lot of Stage 2 signed off during the week and Mims and Mattie Jaggar back for their second year completed Stage 2. These guys had a race series running throughout the week which was won by Max. They were also introduced to some of 7th Wave’s new on the water games including Simon Says and Port Erin Sheepdog! Pirate Friday was turned into Wizard Friday to mark the new Harry Potter film.

Week three, last week was another fairly breezy week with Friday being the gentlest day of them all. Much of the week was spent in the Teras practising the five essentials, hopping into the Pig to wear the ‘thinking’ cap whilst being quizzed on the course theory, then back into the Teras again. There was a lot of capsize practise during the week, (usually not deliberate) and toward the end of the week Philip had mastered sailing without falling out of the boat!! Stage 1 was awarded to Ben Awkal and Stage 2 to Philip and Richard Simon, Rory Murphy, Erika and Fin Procter.