RS Tera Squad Training at Draycote Water Sailing Club
by Anya Green, UK National Tera Squad sailor 24 Mar 2010 18:15 AEDT
13-14 March 2010
The third RS Tera Squad Training Weekend took place at Draycote Water on 13-14 March 2010. It was nice to have the Isle of Man squad over to the join us.
The first day started with light winds, sunshine and butties thanks to Ruth Lewis who saved our bacon with her fantastic mobile kitchen.
Jonathon led the morning briefing, which was about starting strategies. He asked us whether we were lemmings, sheepdogs, kamikaze pilots or preferred risking a port hand flyer. After that Ollie took us for a relay race – thanks Ollie! We enjoyed trying to side step uphill!
Well warmed-up we headed out on the water where the wind had picked up to Force 4. We split into the Sport and Pro fleets and practised our new starting strategies. One of the boys showed us an interesting stunt involving wrapping his mainsheet round the buoy and falling out of the boat while his boat turned on the spot. Cool!!
After lunch Ollie briefed the Sports Squad while Jonathon briefed the Pro Squad – we got more tips on starting. Out on the water the wind was still strong; we launched in two fleets again and practised some more starts.
After the de-briefing we headed back to our accommodation for a quick change before meeting up at a restaurant in Rugby where we ‘tera’rised the staff who had their work cut out feeding most of the squaddies and their parents.
Everyone arrived at Draycote on the second day to meet winds of about force 5 we had a briefing
And a warm up involving stretches and running. After (with difficulty because of the strong wind) everyone gave their boats last minute checks and launched.
Both the Sport and Pro fleets were sailing a windward leeward course just focusing on our own weaknesses and trying to improve our skills in strong winds. After lunch the wind had picked up even more and we did a race where more boats were over than upright! Everyone went in when they had finished the race or had capsized loads, we then had a debrief where we heard that Elliot had been under his turtled boat, he thought fast to find the dagger board and pushed it out before swimming out from underneath.
Another great weekend thanks Ollie and Jonathon. (We really should buy them a board rubber!)