It’s all over

Well the final day had a bit of pressure of the team, trying to hold off competition from behind whislt still trying to climb up the leaderboard. We got out to the racetrack – light and shifty coming off the land. The perfect recipe for a tricky sailing day. The team tried to rise to the challenge but the challenging conditions got the better of us. With 3 not so great results we dropped from 8th to 10th on the final day. A disappointing end perhaps, but some of us have done enough racing to know that these things happen. That’s just sailboat racing. But we are still happy to be top 10 in the world.

The team would once again like to thanks all its supporters and sponsors for making our challenge in France possible. In particular Elderjuice, Brooks Macdonald, Tunnocks, the RNCYC, the Mudhook YC, the CCC and Glasgow University. As without them we would not have been able to represent our country with pride and passion.

 

We’ll try and get some more photos up aswell.

The final countdown

Sorry for not having posted for a while. It’s getting towards the end of the week and its beginning to show. The team is pretty tired and getting a good nights sleep for the last days racing.

Anyway Wednesday. Very frustrating day for us. The first race was looking good until the Jib Haliyard sheave at the top of the mast broke on the final downwind – so we couldnt get the jib up for the last bit of the race but still finished. This resulted in us having to miss the next race to fix it all. Got back out just in time for the 3rd race of the day to post an okay score of 9th, which we were happy with. 4th race of the day we managed to recover from a few errors to get a 7th on the board. With a request for redress we managed to get average points for the day which pulled us up to 9th in the overall standings.

Thursday dawned cold and breezy. But we were ready for it. Went out and got the boat tuned up for the day. Posted 2 6ths for the day which we were pretty happy with. Brought us up the rankings another place. So 8th overall going into the final day. And with some smart sailing we can climb up more. Just need to keep the boat rockin.

Stay tuned for the final report from tomorrows racing. Or so we hope – not a lot of breeze forcasted!

Who said 12 hour days were hard work!?!?!

First race at 0900

Back at the dock at 2045

Most of the team are in bed getting some much needed sleep for tomorrows racing.

The 2 windward leward races were solid results with a 7 and an 8. 3rd race of the day was a short passage race and with navigating the wrong way for 10 minute we dropped from 4th to 12th. Lesson learned.

Final race of the day was the night race. Toughest one so far. Great start at the pin end, at the last third of the 4 hour beat we were lying 2nd, but after going too far away from the land and getting mauled by more than challenging waves and chop we dropped to 8th. A little disappointing but downwind in atlantic swell in 2o knots brought the smiles on everyones faces. With everyone behind the helm it was on helluva ride.

But the biggest lesson from today’s racing – we can get up in the top 3 in races. This is the goal for the rest of the week.

Consistency is key!

Whats this about too much wind to sail?

Watch todays video, the footage was taken inside La Trinite Harbour. Only the hardy Scots and Yanks donned their kit to go see how bad it really was on the sea wall.

Have a look for youself

Gale force winds continue

After a very nice dinner party last night at the Casino of Carnac, this mornings 0900 briefing was a disappointment to everyone, even though it was expected we will not be sent out at least in the morning. They will announce whether we’re going out at 1400 for some round the cans courses so keep your thubs up.

Afer the news we went to the boat which (called Hurluberlu! btw) And got it ready for heavy wind sailing. We attached the lifelines and got the reefing lines ready to go since we were told they will most probably be compulsory in case they sent us our racing.

Oh yeah, today’s Charlie’s 23^rd birthday, wish him a good one!

 

Edit:

Racing was called off for today BUT the plan for tomorrow is to run 4 starts, two windward-leeward courses and two coastal races of which one would be after the dawn. This means possibly around 12hours afloat. That means excessive amounts of carbs for dinner tonight! Stay tuned up with the GPS tracking availablr from http://sywoc.org/

 

No sailing today

Day off sailing

So we though about taking advantage of the beautiful day to dry our absolutely soaked kite while enjoying a sophisticated afternoon coffee and cake on our garden.

First day of racing

After arriving and settling down to Residence Maeva and a day of training and a practice race, today will be the first day of the worlds racing. The practice race started well with a good start and there was some really close racing all the way to the first windward mark. On the first beat there were a few broken haliyards ans other problems which spread out the fleet a lot. Downwind manouevres were good but the constantly wet spinnaker causes its ow nchallenges. Some geniuses had brought it all the way to the hotel and tried to dry it on the ping pong table of the common area.. The sea was rather choppy windds from 17 to 20 knots and we were hitting almost 12 knots downwind with the kite up during some really nice surfs! The forecast for today is strong winds and there is still little uncertainty whether they will send us out at all. Sam just opened the curtains and it looks pretty damn windy already. The organisers will provide us GPS trackers so anyone will be able to follow races live online, www.sywoc.org.

edit 11.51

Racing for today was postponed for a few hours, they’ll announce in fifteen minutes if we’re going out or not. Does not look very good, the winds only picked up during the day.Now waiting at the sailing club bistro. France just lost against the New Zealand in rugby world cup, too bad.

hv

And so it begins…

Our trip to France for the Student Yachting World Cup started early this morning— 7.45am from the GUU steps. We packed our bags into a minibus full of sand (thanks surf club) and headed out, making a quick stop for haggis, IRNBRU and a bottle of whiskey to share with the other countries at tomorrow night’s welcome banquet. The first half of our ourney has passed quickly– an audiobook by John Le Carré (which only Charlie actually followed) and a solid 3 hour nap for the girls.. waking up in England. Made out first stop, filled up the bus and £8 of chocolate later we were back on our way. 155 miles until we pick up our TEAM SCOTLAND kit then another 20 to the ferry… see you on the other side!

Oh yeah, we also picked up our team Scotland kit on they way. Boom!

ae

Leaving tomorrow

Hello folks,

So here we are, leaving tomorrow (Wednesday) morning,  around six months after qualifying for the worlds at BUSA yachting. We’ll be collecting the team kit on the way, then drive all the way down to the south coast, take the ferry over the channel and drive trough Brittany to La Trinité-sur-Mer. We should be arriving there around 12 noon on Thursday. We’ve got Friday for training and the practice race is on Saturday. Actual racing starts on Sunday and will finish on Friday. That’s six days of consecutive yacht racing and will without doubts be challenging in many ways. There is also a possibility for an overnight coastal race which should be fun but tough. The forecast for the week looks quite warm (13-17° C) a little windy, wind forecasts ranging between 10-20+ knots. We’ll keep you updated during the trip so keep refreshing this site.

Our journey

hv

Home

Welcome to the website for the Glasgow University Yachting Team Worlds Campaign!

In April of this year, the team of  Moray Clark, Henry Viljanen, Peder Schimmell, Samuel Tabor, Ailsa Pender, Alexandra Erjavec, Euan Plater and Charlie Foot trekked it down to Portsmouth and the BUSA Yachting Championships with high hopes. It paid off as the team left as Scottish National Champions (see full report), thus qualifying for the Student Yachting World Cup (SYWoC) to be held later this year.

This website is designed to keep you up to date with the team’s news, training programme, sponsorship trail and clearly the World Cup itself, as well as giving you the opportunity to help us on our journey!