Worthing Wins West Sussex Schools and Youth Sailing Regatta 2024
Published 10:48 on 24 Sep 2024
From little acorns big oak trees grow.
(Author Duncan Oakden)
It was September 2019 and Worthing Bugs enter for the first time ever the West Sussex Schools and Youth Sailing Regatta over at Felpham and took a squad of 9 Fevas with us. The children had fun, and the results reflected that this was our first time, and we were all learning so much from the experience. Fast forward five years to 2024, and only two regattas later (Covid stopped the 2020 and 2021 regattas from running) Worthing travelled over to Shoreham with a fleet of 18 boats, (including 29ers, Lasers, Feva's, Pico's, Fusions and Teras) to do battle again in the hotly contested team cup, which Felpham had a vice like grip on, after winning it for the last 9 years!
Worthing were able to field boats within all four of the regatta fleets and still had two sailors from the original 2019 squad taking part. Rookies, for children new to racing and regattas, and then the slow, medium and fast fleet based on PY numbers. The conditions on Saturday were changeable, the sailors endured heavy rain at launch, a sloppy chop seascape and strong winds. The sun then made a nice appearance and helped to lift spirits. The sailors, especially in the slow and rookie fleet did brilliantly navigating Shoreham harbour and making it out to sea. The rookie and slow fleet managed to enjoy two races, and the fast and medium on a different course achieved three races for the day.
Sunday forecast was not looking favourable and after a long discussion at the team managers morning meeting, the difficult decision was made that given the conditions and forecast the rookie fleet would be held ashore, and they would not race on Sunday. This left the slow, medium and fast fleet out on the water racing on one course. The wind was strong, the sea was angry and then out of nowhere a pod of five dolphins appeared and start playing with some of the Feva sailors. Two races were managed before the decision to cancel the third and head ashore was made.
We have always measured Bugs success in smiles, and there were smiles everywhere over the two days, even when it was raining. All the children did amazing, but we will now highlight the top three boats in each fleet.
Rookie Fleet
Theo Bayston 9th in a Tera Sport
Alice Kay and Rosie England 10th in a Fusion
Saffy Booth 12th in a Tera Sport
Slow Fleet
Ethan Read 3rd in a Pico
Thomas Valantin 7th in a Pico
Emilia Mathews 10th in a Tera
Medium Fleet
Jack Booth and Orson Webb in a Feva 2nd place overall and a 1st place in race four in a Feva
Viktor Bochat and Abi Wallace 9th in a Feva
Fast Fleet
Archie Oakden 11th overall and 1st place in race three in a ILCA7
Theodore Valantin 12th in a ILCA6
Austin Sharp 13th in a ILCA6
But how did we get on in the team cup..?
The final scores were announced by Matt Wright, with Felpham taking bronze with 324 points, Adur taking silver with 282 and Worthing delivering GOLD with 252 points. After a run of nine years, there is now a new name on the cup!
In four regattas we have gone from not really knowing what we were doing to lifting the cup! All of this would not have been possible without all the hard work, carried out by so many of the Bug parents, week in week out. Taking 18 boats is also a massive logistical operation, but the Bug parents smashed it here as well, with everyone working to their strengths and coming together to make the regatta happen for all. A massive pat on the back to all involved.
Let's enjoy the victory and have one eye on next year's regatta, which will be hosted again by Itchenor.