Mixed+ Random Pairs Team Racing at Royal Thames Yacht Club
by Jack Fenwick 4 Feb 23:22 NZDT
2 February 2025
Mixed+ Random Pairs Team Racing at Royal Thames YC © Jack Fenwick
Glorious sunshine and a gentle breeze greeted the four teams lead by skippers, Jenny Smallwood, Natalya Dorris, Fiona Hampshire, and Jemima Lawson, gathered for the Mixed+ Random Pairs Team Racing on Sunday 2nd February.
After a brief discussion on shore about the impact of the changes to rule 17 to team racing, the sailors headed afloat to get some quick practice in before racing got under way.
What felt like a lovely breeze in race one quickly vanished about halfway around the race course, but undeterred the sailors battled on to finish the race in an uncharacteristic 35 minutes (or an ice age to most team racers). A quick run ashore to grab some tea and sweets in the interlude and before long the breeze had kicked back in from the South.
With the wind now stable the racing became more and more fierce with the randomly allocated teams having to fight to protect their team mate at each and every mark. After six races, Fiona and Jemima were tied at the top of the leader board on equal wins and so the racing stepped up a gear. The racing intensified and the umpires were called on to unpick complex scenarios around the marks but still it was almost impossible to separate these two skippers and their teams.
With race 12 being called as the final race of the day it was down to Jemima to secure first place. A narrow one point lead while paired with Natalya, a win would secure the title for Lawson, a loss would mean a tie.
Joint first place skipper, Fiona Hampshire gave an insight in to their victory, "Great event on the sunniest day of the year so far, we've had a great days racing with some real battles, great racing right to the finish line and we had many races go down to the wire.
"This is one of my favourite events of the year, short sharp races with a fantastic format of female helms and equal gendered teams, it encourages some sailors to helm who wouldn't normally be involved.
I've got a lot of team racing planned for the year and this was an excellent warm up ahead of the Carmela and Lochan cup in April."
Jemima Lawson, commented, "I always enjoy racing with and against Fiona but it's not often that there are many other women helms in team racing to sail against, so it was great to have Natalya and Jenny there and they certainly pushed us really hard!
"As a Club the Royal Thames is looking to compete at more women's events internationally so being able to race against them really helps to see who the potential stars of these events in the future are.
"Fiona and I are racing together in the Lochan Cup in April so it's good to know that we're working well together so I am really looking forward to seeing who else will be on the start line!"
Full results available on the KSail website, thanks to them for the schedules and support with the results.
With both the Carmela Cup, the UK Nationals for two boat Keelboat Team Racing, and the Lochan Cup, the Women's Keelboat Team Racing Nationals coming up in April, teams are encouraged to get some practice in the sonars at the Hot Rum Random Pairs on the 2nd March.