Hamble River Sailing clubs Inaugural Race Skills Regatta heralded by competitors as an outstanding success
Published 16:04 on 22 Jul 2025
Hamble River Sailing clubs Inaugural Race Skills Regatta heralded by competitors as an outstanding success
The Race Skills Regatta hosted by Hamble River Sailing Club on the 18th 19th and 20th July was held for smaller handicap club keelboats and attracted 6 One design Nordic Folkboats from the HRSC Hamble Folkboat fleet along with handicap club racers from HRSC . The objective and theme for the regatta was to help every competitor to improve race skills and to move to the next level of performance.
The Regatta kicked off on the Friday evening with a racing rules session consisting of an excellent rules presentation from international RYA Judge Nick Devereaux. This generated lots of questions and discussion and Nick skilfully helped us improve our race rules understanding and resolved several burning issues from our recent club races.
Saturday , Race Skills and Coaching day , dawned with a forecast of light NW backing SW forecast.
All competitors gathered in the club house for a pre race briefing from our coaching team , Lead by Cameron Tweedle,( ex Team GBR sailor , Three times National Finn Champion and 2024 Nordic Folkboat Gold Cup winner) supported by Cy Grysley (Finn Sailor and reigning and 3 x UK Nordic Folkboat national Champion) and our Race Officer Mike Foster (credits too long to list !) for tips and advice on gaining free speed by improving pre regatta preparation, met forecast and windshifts, local conditions , on water race prep , tuning , teamwork and roles, pre-start and race tactics.
Then it was off out onto the water where our race officer set us 5 short windward leewards followed by a fun race home, the objective being to create short races with multiple manoeuvres to put theory into practice.
Out on the water the coaches joined on board several boats and also coached on the water from a rib providing valuable in race tips as well as video analysis for the post race debrief back in the club afterwards.
From Left to right Ian with Cameron and Cy in intense discussion on the water
The first race, in a light south westerly , saw Svenja winning the pin end closely followed to weather by Valhalla heading to the left of the course with Cidron Too and Cockleshell opting for the right. A very tight 0.4nm windward leg saw Valhalla overhauling Svenja with Cidron Too and Cockleshell rounding the windward mark in close pursuit.
Valhalla keeping it flat under the watchful eyes of the coaches
Race 2 also saw the Pin end favoured with boats looking to go left and then tack onto port towards the windward mark . Moonraker were early leaving Svenja and Valhalla to get away with a similar result as Cidron Too and Cockleshell closed at a tight windward mark rounding. Valhalla now with two wins in the Folkboat OD class and Cockleshell notching two wins in IRC from Artemis and Forethought.
Race 3 Valhalla was early at the pin end and opted for plan B and Gybed off on port leaving Cidron Too, Svenja and Cockleshell to get clean away. Cidron Too lead the left hand beat and rounded first followed by Valhalla , Svenja and Cockleshell and notched her first win.
Over the last two races Cidron (Pictured below) again came out on top of the Folkboat battle whilst Cockleshell completed a clean sweep in IRC.
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In IRC Forethought improved throughout the day to trade places with Artemis, and in the Folkboats improvements were evidenced all throughout the fleet with strong performances from Scaramouche, Moonraker and Kindred, who closed the distance on the leaders towards the end of the day with some close one design racing culminating in a superb 3rd place for Scaramouche in race 4 and an excellent second place for Moonraker in race 5.
Scaramouche putting into practice the coaches tips and looking good in race 4
All the crews came back to HRSC for the post race briefing buzzing with chatter having had a full on but exhilarating day of close racing and over a few beers listened intently and discussed the insights and tips our coaching and race officer on all aspects racing, including highlighting the benefit of boat team work , dynamic trimming , start techniques, course management, tactics and rules in action This was greeted at the end of the briefing by a huge round of applause by our happy race crews !!
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Left to Right Coaches Cy Grysley, Cameron Tweedle and Race Officer Mike Foster
The key learnings and feedback from and race videos will be published for all club members to benefit from.
The day finished off at the The Royal Air Force Yacht Club for a lively après race session of beer food .
A big thankyou to our coaches and the race management team at HRSC for making the racing a success and to the RAFYC for providing a super post race venue.
Last updated 16:04 on 22 July 2025
