Despite mumps spreading like wild fire around the student population, 16 teams made it to Loughborough to battle it out in Laser 2s at Burton Sailing club on 27-28 November for the annual teamracing event. With the exception of Cambridge, all the teams made it to Loughborough for the Friday night social, FND, at the Student Union, before the first race on Saturday morning.

Saturday saw light breeze from the west, which gradually died after midday. The 16 teams were divided into two leagues, which meant 56 races sailed on a starboard ‘S’ course with the last few races completed as the sun set. In league A, Newcastle and last year’s winners Warwick were tied on 1st place, winning 6 out of 7 races, 3rd was Birmingham, with Durham 2nd and Bristol tied for 4th on 4 wins. In league B Marimar (Loughborough old boys) won 7 races, with Durham 1sts and Cambridge in joint second place with 5 wins, 4th place was Southampton Ladies.

With the music from the previous night still ringing, Sunday morning dawned with the breeze swinging to the north and gradually building to 16 knots during the afternoon, which meant the races managed to be finished quite early but also caused a few swims, which is far from ideal at the end of November. The top eight teams from Saturday raced in the gold league, although the racing schedule had to be changed slightly when top qualifying team Miramar struggled to get up and had their first race changed from race 1 to race 13.

Miramar won all the races giving them the event, but behind them racing was extremely close and with one race to go, Warwick, Durham and Birmingham were all on 4 race wins. Warwick secured second overall with a win against Durham with Birmingham losing to Miramar to stay level with Durham. Durham then beat Birmingham in the sail off for third place. In the Silver league, Bristol 1sts, who missed out on a place in the gold fleet on tie breaker, made a clean sweep of the races to win their league. The next team racing event is the Bristol Brew this coming weekend.

Overall Results

1st Miramar (Jon Emmett & Ellen Milner, Dave Cheshire & Emma Pettitt, Andy Bryson and Kirsten Evans)

2nd Warwick 1sts (Chris Catt & Emily Riley, Charlie Roome & Rachel Clayton Rob Ozanne &Rob Langford-Wood)

3rd Durham 1sts (John Battye & Chris Warburton, Dave Milledge &Clare Boston, Alex Good & Adam Osbourne)