Warwick takes gold at the Leeds Halloween Howler

by Rosie Chase on 30 Oct 2014 This weekend 21 teams from 12 universities made their first appearance of the USC team racing season at the Leeds Halloween Howler 2014. All the big players took part - West Kirby, Birmingham (3), Birmingham Old Boys, Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam (2), Newcastle (3), Swansea (2), York, Nottingham (3) and Lancaster. Kent and Warwick made their debut Howler appearance, as did Leeds’ latest recruits - the Leeds Freshers team.

Day one got off to a prompt start at 9:15 on a bright and breezy Saturday, ensuring that the full 63 races of the Round Robin were polished off in good time. The teams were placed in Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets ahead of Sunday’s finale with Warwick and West Kirby leading the way overnight. Newcastle 1 led the silver fleet, just missing qualification to the gold fleet on points. A gusty weekend all round, Sunday brought more high winds with the sun hidden behind the clouds yet all the competitors remained in high spirits, despite a few sea-sick sailors. The decision was made to withdraw the bronze fleet early on Sunday owing to high winds, but Silver and Gold went on wrestling their Fireflies round the course into the afternoon, completing 55 races.

By the 3 o’clock cut off the Warwick sailors were the undisputed champions without dropping a single race, followed by West Kirby in second and Nottingham Pink in third. Elsewhere in the Gold fleet Kent, captained by Emily Palmer, made an impressive start to their season alongside the experienced Birmingham 1, Nottingham White and Swansea 2. No USC event would be complete without a major social agenda for both nights and Warwick certainly didn’t sacrifice the socials for their win, taking the prize for best Halloween fancy dress jointly with Sheffield Hallam!

Once again the event was pulled off in true Leeds Sailors style, with racers, umpires, the shore and race teams weathering impressive winds to produce a high calibre event. The weekend owes its smooth running to the Leeds University Sailing Club Committee and volunteers, led by Commodore and OOD Ben Lawrence. Changeovers were slick, thanks to the efficient efforts of Wakefield’s Sea Cadets RIBs and their drivers. Enormous thanks to the generous Shropshire SC for the loan of a powerboat gratis, without which the umpires would be stuck ashore!

Following their success, Warwick’s captain Sarah Kent was thrilled: 'The Howler was the first event of the year, and with minimal training we were looking forward to just getting some time on the water and identifying areas to work on over the next few months. To come out winning the event with 100% race wins far exceeded our expectations, especially given how closely fought some of our races were! We had a great event - some fantastic racing especially given the challenging conditions on Sunday. A massive thanks to the Leeds University Sailing Club and West Riding for having us and making Warwick's first Howler so memorable!'

We heard from Charlie Fitzgerald, former Sheffield Hallam captain and West Kirby team member who told us: ‘Our team took the Friday night social in our stride and come morning we were feeling it. But not for long as Leeds had kindly arranged for us to be second race, which meant we were soon knee deep in West Riding’s lake and wide awake! We racked up a convincing 5/1 win/loss ratio on the first day, and a similar result on the Sunday. Some breezy conditions and time constraints meant that we didn’t get to settle the score with Warwick, but they deservedly took the win after not dropping a race all weekend, leaving us with a healthy second place. All in all a successful trip, thanks to Ben and his team for making it happen!’

Wrapped up for another year, the Leeds Halloween Howler was a resounding hit and a brilliant start to 2014/15.