This weekend was very successful at the NSSA Match Racing Championships which ended up with our team taking the title, but not as straight forwardly as it sounds. Seven teams turned up on the Saturday morning to start racing and after the briefings and a few delays we started racing. We had a good days racing, winning all our races, some by a big margin, and others only slimly, having to come from behind at the start, at the end of the day we were in pole position just in front of Magdalen College who had one all their races (but one) to us.
On the Sunday Morning there was much more wind and we started the day with one reef and no spinnakers. Through the morning and early afternoon, both magdalen and ourselves continued to win all our races. Due to various technicalities our last match was against magdalen, which acted as a Final, with the winner taking the title, now with spinnakers allowed. From our previous race we had noticed we were weaker in the pre start but faster up wind so than they were. With the nerves running high amongst most of the crew we entered the pre-start with the intention of starting ahead, as we did. Over the first lap there was not much change but, up the first beat we ironically started to loose in the tacks. Going round the last windward buoy we were just ahead and managed to keep it down the run as we rolled across the finish line, going very deep to avoid gybing in the strengthening wind.
Overall, we had a lot of fun this weekend and are obviously very pleased with the final result!
Sam
