RYA Moody Decking Schools Match Racing Championship

The RYA Moody Decking Schools Match Racing Championship at Queen Mary Sailing Club saw Storm Arwen delivering breeze and freezing temperatures to test the 10 teams competing for the title.

With the start time delayed by a couple of hours to give teams more travel time given the difficult conditions, the racing in RS21s got underway just before noon on Saturday 27 November 2022.

The wind in knots was up in the mid-teens gusting mid-20s but sailable for the start of the round robin series, with sails reefed and spinnakers up for around half the races.

As the breeze continued to build with Storm Arwen, however, the race team made a decision to fly AP over A at around 3pm and postponed further racing until the Sunday, when freezing temperatures saw competitors having to take ice off the boats before launching.

With clear, crisp conditions and the wind averaging 10 knots with gusts peaking at 17 knots, the round robin was successfully completed. It had been anticipated that there would only be time for the round robin to be completed but as the sun started setting for the day, the top four teams were able to proceed into a petit final and final.

The petit final was a sudden death one-race decider which saw Royal Hospital School (Sebastian Kempe, Thommie Grit, Grace Pank and Wilf Taylor) claiming third overall from Royal Grammar School, Guildford (Ben Mueller, Harry Shaw, Sam Rooke, Haytham Rayner and Josh Inglesfield). Royal Hospital School also won the trophy for the highest placed National School Sailing Association team.

In the final, Portsmouth Grammar School (Finley Dickinson, Laura Hantrais, Luke Anstey and James Curtis) took two straight wins to claim the title, leaving the team from Catmose/Harington (Jamie Tylecote, Ben Tylecote, Dylan Beatty, Freya Pembery and Tom McEnery) in second overall.

Close racing

The team from Portsmouth Grammar School (PGS) sixth form all had little experience of sailing the boat or match racing prior to the event and had taken part in an optional training afternoon on the Friday to practise some boat handling and boatspeed.

Day one then saw the team experiencing incredibly close racing in heavy winds. Taking up the team’s story, crew member James Curtis said: “It was a steep learning curve for all of us, especially in the first two races when we were penalised for entering the starting box too early, although we did manage to recover to win both of those races.” Then after having understood the finer points of match racing, ironically race three saw an incident at the leeward mark which “ultimately cost us the race”.

On the Sunday, the team resumed their winning ways to claim the first two races, again with close racing, which saw PGS only just squeezing ahead to win the second race by breaking their overlap into the finish. “We then went on to win the next four races, with some great strategy and tactics from our helm Fin, always chasing the other team on the startline to make sure we were in the strongest, most controlling position.”

With the round robin completed the team had been starting to celebrate while sailing back to the pontoon, believing it to be the end of the event and having won their race against the boat which was joint top of the leaderboard with an equal number of wins, Catmose/Harington.

“Then we heard racing had finished earlier than expected so there was time for a finals series. This meant we had to go out there and win two more races!” said James. “We won the first one but in the second race, after crossing the startline behind, it wasn’t looking good upwind. Then downwind with Fin spotting a band of pressure coming down on the right and some great spinnaker work by the crew, we managed to get an overlap on the inside and eventually take the other team after a bit of a luffing battle to win the race and the championship.”

“It was the first time we’d really raced as a team and the first time most of us had match raced. It was brilliant because we all usually do fleet racing and match racing just puts an instant smile on your face. You can feel the adrenaline and there’s also the buzz of sailing as part of a team. Most of us sail single handed boats so it was great to share the highs and the lows. It was my first time match racing and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. We hope to now do a few more events as a team.”

Other teams competing at the championship came from Cokethorpe School, Claires Court, Derbyshire Youth Sailing, Clifton College, Radley College and Oxford Sail Training Trust.

Thanks went to Queen Mary SC for hosting the event, to the competitors and their schools and to the race committee - led by Chris Davis with Ann Roy - and the umpire team led by Liz Procter with Steve Procter, Paul Robson, George Elhers, Fiona Tylecote, Ed Sibson and George Barker. 

Event director Richard Moxey, RYA Keelboat Development Manager, added: “We had some good match racing between the teams and the students really enjoyed their weekend with lots of smiles which made it rewarding for everyone involved in supporting the championship – despite the cold!”

Full results can be found at www.matchracingresults.com. Winter match racing dates are due to be announced soon. Find out more about RYA Match Racing here.