ROTTERS Bring a Buddy at Ripon Sailing Club
by Lucy Priest 21 Apr 01:43 PDT
18 April 2026
ROTTERS Bring a Buddy at Ripon Sailing Club © J Young
Saturday 18th April was the second main season date in the ROTTERS calendar at Ripon SC and saw a bumper turnout with over 30 kids on the water, including several Buddies invited by existing ROTTERS to see what all the fuss was about.
Bright sunshine and a building breeze meant things were set fair for a cracking day on the water.
The sailors were initially divided into three groups: Red (Race Squad), Blue (Intermediate) and White (Beginner) with the Buddies being added to the White group. Reds and Blues went off for their group briefings, while the Whites headed down to the boat park to start out by rigging some of the training fleet. The Red group then headed down to the North lake to work on start drills, holding station and slow speed boat control while the Blue group in the South lake were working on upwind sailing skills.
The White group split up further, with some going out for taster sails in a Vision or Feva while those who had done a little sailing before got to see what they could do in a single hander. This resulted in some people getting wet, although Elodie managed to make Topper sailing look easy, getting my shout for ROTTER of the Month.
Caroline had done a fantastic job in the galley getting lunches ready for sailors, parents, coaches and Saturday racers and the smell of hot sausages seemed to act as a magnetic force bringing groups in from the lake. After lunch (and the inevitable ROTTERS football match) the Red group headed out to join the Saturday race series where at least some of the group were able to show that they had been paying attention to all those start drills.
The Blue group and White groups continued their morning activities with a few changes of personnel. The wind built during the afternoon, resulting in several capsizes across the groups and out on the race course, with only the Blue group managing to stay dry all day. By the time the Saturday club races had finished (with some combination of ROTTERS 1, 2, 3 in each race) most of the training groups were back off the water, with plenty of wet, tired and happy sailors telling amazing stories of their adventures on the water and a few joyriders still whizzing about enjoying the gusts.
Many thanks to everyone who helped make such an epic day run. In particular thanks to Ian and Tim for coaching, Angus, Hannah and Richard for providing joyrides, Hannah (again) and Peter for unexpected race team duty, Caroline for galley duty, and to Claire and everyone else for all the behind the scenes work that make these days run.