North East & Yorkshire Youth Travellers (NEYYTS) at Ripon Sailing Club

Testing conditions in the North East & Yorkshire Youth Traveller Series at Ripon © Gail Jackson

Saturday 23 April saw 50 youth and junior sailors launch at Ripon Sailing Club for the first round of the 2022 North East & Yorkshire Youth Traveller series. Now in it's 39th year, the series continues to go from strength to strength offering competitive racing at the front of the fleet with a supported coached regatta division for the less experienced.

The event was being shared by the RS Tera North summer series and they enjoyed a turnout of over 20 Teras at the event.

Ripon also ran a session for their younger sailors who are not yet ready to participate in the racing and six young 'ducklings' enjoyed a day of Optimist sailing and joy-ride double hander outings under the supervision of Y&J Sailing Secretary Lucy Priest.

The predicted strong winds didn't arrive in the morning and the fleet started race one from the far end of the lake to maximise the length of beat. Local ILCA 6 sailor Tom Bates showed the fleet a clean set of heels and led the race on the water and on handicap whilst the other ILCA 6 sailors had a good race with positions changing each lap with series regulars Redmond, Burton & Boyce pulling away from the other ILCA 6 and finishing in that order.

Fantastic start to 2022 North East & Yorkshire Youth Traveller Series at Ripon - photo © Gail Jackson

Moss, Fisher, Horsman & Hirst had a close finish with 4 seconds between the four boats with Fisher pipping the gents over the line. Elsewhere the Whitehead brothers in their Tera Sports and the Tera Pros of Knowles & M Sommerville had a good race with Somerville winning on handicap.

In the regatta fleet Lucy Cliffe showed promise of things to come with a solid performance to finish 21st overall on handicap while 6 year old Harry Wilson in his Tera Mini finished the race with his smile still firmly intact.

After a break for lunch the fleet returned to the start line to be met with increased wind, big gusts and, unusually for Ripon, large breaking waves!

The top five in race 1 kindly opened up the score board by all being disqualified either via UFD or for rule infringements leaving heavy weather loving ILCA 6 Moss to take second after T Whitehead's Tera Sport.

Many sailors struggled in the conditions and retired or were taken ashore but it was fantastic to see the high level of boat handling and competition despite the adverse conditions, performances to note include Alderson and I Wright in their ILCA 4s, Bullen put in his best performance of the day in his Tera Pro to finish eighth whilst Wood & Gordon in their Tera Sports had big planing legs and even bigger grins to finish sixth and seventh respectively.

Leeward mark rounding in the North East & Yorkshire Youth Traveller Series at Ripon - photo © Fiona Spence

Whilst their results may not make the top ten, some solid high wind sailing was seen from many less experienced sailors including Charlie Hammond, Grace Gordon & Lucy Cliffe in their Toppers who battled each other to the finish line along with Rosie Morrison's ILCA 6.

After a pause between races to allow the safety crews to recover abandoned boats (with help from some of the more experienced sailors) race 3 started with a different course and a smaller starting line-up as many decided to stay ashore as the wind had shifted but was still gusting hard. Goodman in his ILCA 6 decided he also wanted a UFD on his score card with a textbook trigger pull executed 2 seconds too early.

Meanwhile in the competitive Tera fleet, D Whitehead showed his brother around this time to finish fifth overall, with Knowles' Tera Pro pipping Bullen's Pro with Boatman in his Tera Sport finding his mojo to finish with the leading pack of Tera Sports. The ILCA's of Redmond, Moss and Bates were split by Blades's Optimist in third overall on handicap.

A notable performance, and Ripon's sailor of the day, was Michael Napier, sailing in his first competitive event who put in a solid performance and learned a lot to take forward for next time finishing 24th overall having finished every race.

An excellent start to this series and a fantastic day on the water at Ripon. The next event in the series is on Saturday 7 May at Yorkshire Dales SC.

Race 1 start of the North East & Yorkshire Youth Traveller Series at Ripon - photo © James Wild

Overall Results: