First informal Burghfield Training declared a great success

The Burghfield training weekend began when the coaches, Jonny McGovern and Matt Mee arrived Chez Hamilton on the Friday night and were promptly targeted by a 7 month old puppy, Ollie, who decided to spend the rest of the evening attached to them or chewing their clothes… must be the aftershave these guys use!

The Saturday dawned mild and sunny and the wind filled in beautifully as the fleet launched. 18 sailors attended the weekend from as far away as Staffordshire and Plymouth. Some sailors were in pairings already, others had been ‘put together’ by Steve Hamilton – and he was very relieved to see these pairings of Hayleigh & Alison and Serena & Kirstie worked out superbly well over the course of the weekend.

Saturday morning was spent with the focus on boat handling, getting to grips with tacking, gybing and using the spinnaker. Some of the sailors had not sailed a 420 before, some had a bit of experience but more experience of a smaller tub with one sail! You might be a top-ranked oppie sailor, but several found it frustrating when things didn’t prove quite so easy with three sails and lots of knitting.

The afternoon took the form of various exercises including ‘Creeping Death’ (which is apparently so much easier in an oppie) and Riverbank. The afternoon finished with a race. The oppie helms attempted a ‘traditional oppie start’ and soon leant this doesn’t work as Craig and Charlie and the Hamilton girls were quickly OCS.

Sunday had slightly less sunshine, but more wind. Older sailors William and Joe were delighted to see the difference in the breeze and were looking forward to getting out on the wire. At lunch time they reported surprise that the ‘tiny girls’ had all managed to keep their boats upright.

The boats were out early for more boat handling training prior to joining the club racing. Burghfield was kind enough to put on a separate start for the 420s and allow them to be coached during their racing. So a very long session on the water that morning. During the race poor Anna Greenwell learnt that trapezing isn’t the easiest thing in the world when she swung in front of the shroud onto the deck, into the mast and into the water – a very nasty bang to the knee put paid to her and Elaine’s adventures, and they joined the coach boats for the afternoon.

After lunch there was the afternoon club race around the cans with more coaching and, when club members went in, the coaches set up some smaller courses for more racing. There was some very competitive stuff going on at the front of the fleet; given that these boats were stuffed full with top oppie sailors, then that’s no surprise. In the afternoon race with heavy gusts a decision by Matt & Tarra to go for their spinnaker landed them in the water and girl boats Issy & Sophie and Jess & Georgie quickly passed them by, although the boys got their boat up quickly and returned to the front part of the fleet.

During the weekend the sailors were competing for the ‘Cadbury’s Cup’, 5 races and NO DISCARDS! With three 1^st places the Hamilton girls were gutted to discover the no discards, which meant they had to count their previous days OCS and ended up in 3^rd overall and a with distinctly smaller bar of chocolate. Matt & Tarra came second in this closely fought series, and Jess & Georgie were the ones with the biggest smiles when they saw the size of their winners’ Cadbury’s bars! The rest of the sailors made do with consolation packets of sweets.

Huge thanks for some fantastic coaching from Jonny and Matt – awesome coaches, very inspiring and easy to learn from according to the sailors. Parents were equally impressed by their professionalism and how they developed the sailors over the weekend.

It was lovely to the see the progress made by all the sailors over the weekend, especially the new pairings.

We are holding another training weekend at Burghfield in a fortnight’s time. We look forward to welcoming any other boats who want to attend.

Nikki Hamilton