On the Saturday we arrived at the sailing club at around 9.00 and began to rig our boats, it looked like it was going to be a good day as it was already very hot, others arrived as we were rigging such as Flynn Davies, Crispin and Hamish Beaumont and James Hutton-Penman, it was soon time for the briefing which Nick Hutton-Penman  was doing (he was our coach for the weekend) it was very light weather so we mainly focused on roll tacking and keeping the boat moving fast, the tide was very strong during the day proving to be a challenge for those who did not regularly sail in river or sea conditions. We were taught to go close inshore and do short tacks making a huge difference to those who attempted to sail across the middle of the river. We all gained a lot of light winds boat handling experience on the Saturday and were thoroughly prepared for another day of sailing, this time in race conditions.

 The Sunday started with a little more wind then the Saturday but it was still light winds so during the races I tried to keep my boat moving fast and put in as few tacks as possible aiming to gain ground on those who went to far into the even stronger tide, in the end we managed 1 race in the morning as there was not enough wind across the course to finish the second race. I won the first race but was closely followed over the line by James Hutton-Penman and Hamish Eckstean who finished 2^nd and 3^rd. We were all pleasantly surprised in the afternoon when the wind finally came out, it suddenly became very grey and very windy so that everyone was hiking hard, a few boats even went in but the racing was kept on, the next three races were a lot tougher with much stronger winds, James managed to win the second race with Flynn winning the third, the final race was battled for hard but James proved victorious once again sealing his first place overall position. It was tough conditions and we were forced to hike almost all of the way round the course tiring all the sailors out, after the 4 races there was a prize giving given by Richard Taylor, who also organised the weekend, for the Tera’s in which glass cups were handed out to every sailor that participated in the event and t-shirts were handed out to those that had come within the top 3 positions. This included me, James Hutton-Penman and Flynn Davies.

 Overall I think the weekend went very well with very good coaching from Nick and some good races run by John Hardy the race officer, even though the weather was giving him a hard time ( at one point the course had to be completely re-laid because of a 180 degree wind shift ).  Burnham Club provided a great welcome with excellent lunches and afternoon teas and superb organisation. As a bonus the weather was great for the spectators all weekend.

Joshua Aldridge