Over the weekend of 25th and 26th April, Exe Sailing Club hosted an RS Feva ‘Train and Race’ weekend. The RS Feva is a great modern dinghy, designed for youth fleets, but popular with sailors of all ages, and is a perfect boat for developing sailing and racing skills.
The class is well supported both nationally and internationally, and Exe sailing club was proud to be hosting this event, which aimed to give less experienced competitors an intensive weekend of training, then racing.
Nine boats, from seven different clubs, spanning from St Mawes in Cornwall to Ringwood in Hampshire, entered the event, with three boats representing Exe sailing club. Two-times Olympic 470 sailor, and highly acclaimed Feva coach, Debbie Darling, from Northampton, ran the training day on Saturday. Crews had an excellent briefing and rigging session before setting out to sea, in a force four south-westerly breeze. Even the crews who came from inland reservoirs rose to the challenge of a moderately lumpy sea, and came off the water after 3 hours of sailing, buzzing with beaming smiles. A further hour in the ‘classroom’, and all the participants were positively brimming with knowledge, and quite ready for high tea provided by the club.
Sunday was race day, and came with good conditions, with a north-easterly force four, and a flat sea, albeit somewhat nippier than the day before! Three races were held out to sea. The organization of the event flowed very smoothly, with plenty of excellent volunteers from the club, both on and off the water.
There was a great mix of abilities and experience in the fleet, with a couple of competitors at Zone and National squad level who turned up just for the race day, showing some inspiring fluency and tactics. At the other end of the experience range were first timers, Walter Cresswell and Johnny Ekins, from Ringwood. In the stronger gusts they initially struggled to stay on course, heading off towards Teignmouth at one point. Safety boat crews nurtured them back on course, and with constant jovial banter, clearly having a whale of a time, they ended up showing tremendous progress as the event progressed!
Ellie Hill and Taddy Horacek from Bristol Corinthian Yacht Club won the event with some excellent consistent sailing (and wonderful matching red and white hats!). A special mention should, however, go to Bertie and Alexander Ratsey from Plymouth. They held a clear and impressive lead in two out of the three races, but had to retire from leading the second race when their main halyard broke. Their determination and initiative shone through, when they capsized their boat to fix the breakage at the mast-head, in time to start, and win, the final race. All good stuff for local sailors Woody Powderly-Turner, Sandy Bailey, Jennie Edwards, Ffion Morgan, Samuel Arkinstall and Jack Francis to be inspired by. They all had moments of genius during the weekend and are rearing to go for more Feva racing this season!
Look out for a similar event, on July 11th and 12th of July, at Sidmouth sailing club.