Close competition for RYA Schools National Match Racing Championship

A team from Royal Hospital School has claimed victory over a weekend of top level competition for the latest edition of the RYA Schools National Match Racing Championship.

The rescheduled 2025 RYA Schools National Match Racing Championship was hosted by the Royal Thames Yacht Club (24-25 January 2026) after storms led to the event being cancelled last November.

Sailing the club’s fleet of Sonar keelboats on London’s Queen Mary Reservoir, 20 sailors representing five school teams battled it out for the title with 47 races in total across the two days.

RHS Falcons from Royal Hospital School set the pace early, taking a clean slate of wins from the first round robin. The team’s good form then continued to see RHS Falcons topping the leaderboard after four round robins, with 14 wins from 16 races.

All the teams were pushing hard for results, however, and hot on their heels were the Ryde School 1 team skippered by Finley McKinney Lambert, counting 13 race wins.

Third and fourth following the round robin stage were the teams of CEC/Peter Symonds, skippered by Will Bradley, and Ryde School 2, helmed by Will Haines.

Semi-finals & final

Into the semi-finals, RHS Falcons took two wins from Ryde School 2 to secure their place in the final. The second semi-final went to a deciding race with CEC/Peter Symonds overtaking Ryde School 1 on the final run to join RHS Falcons for a shot at the title.

The petit final saw Ryde School win the race from Ryde School 2 for third overall, with the final settled 2-0 to see RHS Falcons emerge victorious overall.

Skipper Toby Smith from the winning RHS Falcons team said: “Going into the event, we knew the standard would be extremely high, and the team rose to the challenge under intense pressure. The support from our coaches before and throughout the regatta was crucial to our success. Staying focused over such a long and demanding competition was key, as even small mistakes proved costly.”

At the prizegiving, Toby thanked the organisers and all those involved in making the event happen, including the race committee, umpires, changeover team and bosun, adding: “Thank you to all the competitors as well, it was great racing.”

The Race Officers for the weekend were Kirstie Eaton, Bill Wyatt and Linda Pennington, with the team of umpires comprising Jack Fenwick (Chief Umpire), Sally Burnett, Greg Eaton, Liz Procter, Steve Procter and Christian Huelss.

Overall results

• 1^st RHS Falcons - Toby Smith, Ottie Scott, Izzy Bartlett, Ralph Musto
• 2^nd CEC/Peter Symonds - Will Bradley, Tom Yates, Max Newnam, Maeve Hal
• 3^rd Ryde School 1 - Finley McKinney Lambert, Oliver Smith, Charlotte Cox, Iolo James
• 4^th Ryde School 2 – Will Haines, Cori Miller, Elspeth Baker, Laura Brading Palmer
• 5^th RHS Pink - Mathilde Phillips, Lyndon Pickering, Daisy Adams, Sam Whelan

Full results breakdown  

RHS Pink skipper Mathilde Phillips had stepped in to helm a keelboat for the first time only the week before the event and the team had worked hard to progress their skills over just three days. Although they didn’t manage to win a race, their coach Ed Sibson, Director of Sailing at Royal Hospital School, said he was proud of their attitude throughout the weekend: “In previous years, the performance of Tild’s team would have been good enough for a mid-fleet finish, possibly even the semi-finals. The overall level at the event has comfortably been the highest I’ve seen in nine years of school match racing and is a real credit to all the sailors involved.”

Next up for match racing is the first event of the 2026 UK circuit, which will be hosted by Royal Thames Yacht Club at London’s Queen Mary SC over the weekend of 21-22 February 2026. Enter Royal Thames YC’s Match Racing event or find out more about this exciting discipline and how you can take part at RYA Match Racing.

Top photo (c) Freddie Cardew-Smith