Starting? I suppose you get what the NZS did last w/e at Draycote with Andy Walsh...

The focus for the penultimate North feza zone squad W/e was Starting tactics and 1st beat strategy.  The guys rattled through around 40 starts over the weekend, practicing different approaches to the line, checking for line bias and making a race plan ready to tell their coach for each start.  For the final afternoon session the sailors could pick any exercises they wanted to work on, and they picked starting!!! along pressure boat handling.  Racing against 60 other boats in HISC in two weekends time, probably had a lot to do with their decision!

A remarkably quick turnaround on the speed freak front. In 2007 James Lavery and Hamish Ellis claimed a 50 meter speed of 15.87 kts in between HISC and Emsworth. Can anyone top that?? William and Luke still lead in the proper junior category given that James is an adult!

WHilst I was reminiscing yesterday about the dinghy show (and I was proud by the way about the youngsters on the stand - they did extremely well!) the NZS 7 SZS were hard at work. I clear forgot to mention of course that the Chichester Habour lot at HISC were also being put through their paces. Now I happen to know from standing on a rugby touchline in Chichester that today was not only sunny. It was definitely fairly breezy too and that breeze was well chilly. Now I don't suppose th\t the temperature really stopped any Feva sailors (from any of the 3 squads out today) from strutting their stuff. I know it didn't stop the fun down at HISC cos William & Luke from Bough Beech and in the SZS had a GPS on board. That GPS logged these two at 10.6kts. The question is does anybody else have a GPS assessed Feva at a speed greater than 10.6kts???

The dinghy show at Alexandra Palace was excellent today. Couldn't quite work out how come our car only had two adults in it on the way up. Oh yes, remember now. Stacks of the younger versions had decided to come up by train. After an easy hassle free trip those from the Emsworth area got there some four hours later. Another success there then. The show was crammed with people from all over. It seemed just like any other squad w/e really! Jon P was up to his normal tricks with people arriving to buy a shackle and leaving with an entire new boat! Oh la la! The weather seemed outstanding and I only hope our keen RYA zone squadders had a great time too. Only 2 weeks to the Great Gathering at HISC!

The wind had moderated a little bit when this video was shot of the fleet running back to the club for reheating and lunch. Still get a good idea of balance and speed - like hunting in a pack, total control and keeping the bow up. Beautiful technique by every one of them. Gorgeous. Just smell the adrenaline and get high on it!

I hooted when I saw it. Couldn't believe my eyes. Before first launch on Sunday morning at Grafham there were sailors in batches doing vigorous warm ups before going afloat. I've never seen such keen physical jerks from the sailors before. No surpise I suppose with windchill of -4 or -5. The really surprising thing though was that they did it of their own bats without a coach telling them to do so.

Anyway, here is a gentle scene of down wind work from the Saturday and Ed doing his best to remain cool.

The RS Fevas are proud to be able to participate in the Sport Relief Mile Challenge. A simple format is being adopted during the annual winter Great Gathering. We will have some 70 Fevas from all squads, RYA squads and Class Squads gather at Hayling Island Sailing Club the Sport Relief Weekend for an intensive weekend racing preparation on 20-21 March.

On the Saturday it is planned to hold a one mile race with a participation fee of £10 (or more if the sailors can raise extra sums) per boat. The winning helm and crew will take the only prize £10 each which will be given to them by Frances Peters (ISAF Youth World Champion 2008) that evening. The balance of the participation money will go straight to Sport Relief.

The twist in the story is that the boats from the RYA National Junior Squad and the Class National Squad will have to start from a separate start line 50 yards back. That should make it more exciting with no predictable ‘winner’!

The NJS and CNC combined forces this last w/e at Grafham. The 29er Transition Squad and I'm not quite sure which Laser squad were next door at the watersports centre simultaneously. Although we couldn't really get to see Jack Hawkins, Chris Thomas, Ollie Cooper, James Poyner, Ben Davies, Tristan Ellis and Ben Gratton they did appear to be having fun blasting up and down in their waterborne missiles. Wonderful to to catch up with Jo and James Hawkiins too - some things never change and James attached to a pair of binos is one of them! Greatly enjoyed their gatecrashing the social at the Wheatsheaf on Saturday evening.

Better mention the sailing too! Saturday was full on with races, starts and windshifts. Temperatures were pretty mild until midafternoon but Grafham gave Niall exactly the conditions he needed for the days main aim - windshifts. Pretty much everybody had their moments of glory (in fact I'm not sure that anyone didn't hog some limelight at some point!) but arguably the swiftest on the day were (in no particular order) Cathy & Francine, Owen & Charlie and Morgan & Herbie. Midafternoon the sky went grey, definition was lost in the universal greyscale, the dayglow pink kites in both the 9ers and the Fevas weren't visible only half way across the lake, the rain came down and the wind went AWOL whilst the temperature came down by 5C in about 10mins. All came ashore warmed up, debriefed and socialised in approximately that order. Half the parents were dutifully waiting in the Wheatsheaf for kids to arrive - clearly the rugby on the telly had nowt to do with such forward planninig and personal sacrifice! Photo from the Sat I think...

Sunday morning - what a difference. Anyone oldfashioned enough to have listened to the Maritime forecast on radio 4 on Sun morning would have been prepared but even so the forecast was something I hadn't heard before - 'Dover: Gale force 8, Strong Gale 9. Storm force 10, 11 and occasional Hurrican Force 12!'  Blimey - that made you sit up and listen... Anyway Grafham isn't exactly next to Dover but even so. By launch time the wind was according to the club anemometer between 23 & 28kn all all the time with 25 being a reasonable average. Air temp was 5.7C - with windchill that was -4.5! Off they all went anyway for a morning of gybing practice. Pretty spectacular from where the armchair  experts sat. Having spent almost an hour and half afloat in grim conditions in the morning it wasn't surprising that a number of invalids appeared in the afternoon. It still didn't stop most from venturing out in equally cold but no longer rainy conditions. The finale was a very long beat followed by a very long run in 16-20 knots with plenty of adrenaline.

The upshot of the adrenaline dump during the day was a fairly quiet car on the homebound drive with plenty of the strangest conversation imaginable interspersed by slumber. What is it with recurring dreams that makes them so vivid and discussable!

With the forecast changing massively every time you look at it at present the only firm conclusion you can make is that we are in the middle of a very complex weather pattern. At the time of writing though, Grafham where the NJS and CNS are training this w/e, the wind is expected to do an anti-clockwise 360 during Sat & Sun. It is also meant to start with very gentle breezes on Sat with it building to a nice strong force 4 on Sunday. So something for everyone this w/e then. Oh yes, and there should be the occassional little shower as well to help the garden along so no need to do the watering before leaving!

Wind strategy wise the answer will be simple - go left up the beat! Of course the tide could foul that strategy up!

Unless someone has any photos from half term not yet shared then this is the last from the latest half term activities. I'm not sure it is just Vikki who looks surprised at being teleported into this boat midway through the tack or gybe. Priceless!