SSS Ladies Team Racing Regatta Weekend 2016

The weekend of 19/20 November 2016 Forfar Sailing Club hosted 60 lady Student sailors at the first of this seasons team racing regattas Although a Scottish regatta teams came from as far afield as Loughbrough as well as most of the Scottish Universities. Dundee University Sailing Club organised the event that was won by Glasgow University .

Saturday started with a beautiful sunny blue sky but ice over all the boats and a need for buckets of boiling water to release the controls of a visiting safety boat. Fingers were numbed rigging boats and hot soup, bacon rolls, tea and cakes were appreciated whilst the ice blocks remained outside all the weekend. Then the mist rolled in, and stayed all weekend. It was bitter out on the water whilst starting and finishing boats and judge and safety crew had to stay on the water all weekend.

This was not to reduce any of the enthusiasm of the students who were being expertly corralled into a starting sequence almost every three minutes, with 45 races, no that’s not a typo, 45 in the first day. Saturday night was their party night at the union in Dundee University, but everyone was back for a freezing first race start at 10:00 on Sunday morning.

At times it was not possible to see across the loch; one of the safety boats had navigation lights on most of the day, and radios kept information between the participants at times when shore visibility was really poor.

At the final presentation most was made of the fun and conditions, (extremely cold and a very light westerly with a bit of north at times) before all the dinghys and service boats were reloaded on their trailers for their return. Nevertheless everyone seemed to leave expressing their enjoyment and appreciation of the organisation and their welcome to Forfar loch.