MidSummer Medley Weekend 2026 at Ripon Sailing Club
by Lucy Priest 15 Jul 10:28 PDT
11-12 July 2026
MidSummer Medley Weekend at Ripon © Gail Jackson
Ripon Sailing Club held its MidSummer Medley over the 11th & 12th July, providing racing for a massive range of ages and experience levels across the weekend.
Day 1 saw 6 club teams joined by a team from Harrogate Sea Cadets to compete in the 9-5 Team Relay race, with the aim of completing as many laps of the course as possible in a fixed time period. The event was sailed in a mix of RS Visions, Quests and Fevas with the club's Comet Trio acting as a wildcard.
Although the original idea was to race between 9am and 5pm, the race was actually scheduled for between 10am and 6pm but a lack of wind meant the Race Officer's first action was to put the AP up. This gave everyone time for an extra cup of coffee and several last minute rigging adjustments before racing got under way at 11am.
One of the aims of the event was to give novice sailors a chance to sail with more experienced racers, providing lots of opportunities for coaching and learning. Teams had the opportunity to use spinnakers and most gave it a go, although some of the younger ROTTERS pairings found themselves overpowered as the wind built.
With plenty of non-sailing time between crew shifts the ROTTERS kept themselves entertained with variations on capsize practice and experiments on how many kids will fit in a training Oppy, while the adults generally stuck with lots and lots of chatting and mugs of tea. At 4pm, with a lot of the younger sailors starting to flag, the race officers shortened the recommended crew change period and announced that the finish time would be brought forward to 5.30.
After 6 and a half hours sailing the 55 sailors had managed a combined 246 laps of the course meaning they had sailed over 110 miles in total!
The ROTTERS Reds took home the prize for most capsizes, with a few epic swims. The ROTTERS Whites finished as third 'junior' team (they were allowed adult helms as the youngest sailor on the team was only 3!), Harrogate Sea Cadets finished second and ROTTERS Blues finished as top junior team. The Comet finished top adult boat with RSC2 just beating out RSC1 in the Visions thanks to a spectacular capsize from Richard and Henry. Prize giving was followed by a BYO barbecue.
Day 2 saw a very different style of racing during the Fleets Trophies. This year we had class racing for Streakers, Solos, Supernovas and Optimists as well as an Allcomers fleet. The wind was a little stronger than on Saturday but still predominantly from the East meaning committee boat starts in the North lake were essential.
The Race Officers chose to combine some of the fleet starts and set a line which should have been long enough to prevent any problems, but the first Streaker/Supernova start still included chaos, shouts of PROTEST and boats going backwards. Chris and Mike stayed well clear of the start line chaos and popped out into clear air.
Lucy was not so lucky but managed to fight through the pack over the first two laps before benefitting from well timed gust, allowing her to plane down the reach and back into contention with the top two before eventually working her way round the shifts for a win.
In the Solos the battle of the Jacksons was won by Steve, but Richard came out top of the fleet. Things were a little more unexpected in the Supernova and Optimist fleet, with Tom pushing Martin back into second in the Supernovas while Katie was delighted to finally record a win over her brother in the Oppies. In the Laser/Mixed fleet, Coral went swimming allowing James to finish as top Watt, though Alastair took top spot in the fleet, pushed hard by Dominic in the Aero.
After lunch the Race Officers reset the course slightly and the fleets launched for two back-to-back races. Staying clear of the start line chaos this time Lucy took an early lead which she held to the end while Richard took a second win in the Solos but Martin and Callum took the wins in the Supernova and Optimist fleets, meaning there was all to play for going in to the final races in those fleets.
After another small course tweak the final race saw Lucy and Richard retain top spots in the Streaker and Solo fleets and Martin take a second win in the Supernovas to win that fleet. Racing was extremely tight in the Optimist fleet though, with Felix pushing hard for a win of his own and final run and leeward mark rounding proving decisive.
In the end Callum had done just enough on the run to get a clear mark rounding and lane to the finish line, but Katie couldn't get an overlap coming into the final mark, allowing Felix to take second place.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the smooth running of the weekend, particularly the Saturday galley crew and our Race Office and Safety teams. Thanks also to Harrogate Sea Cadets for the loan of one of their boats for the 9-5 race.