Last weekend saw Cambridge and Oxford compete in the Winter Weekend Series in the Solent on First 40s to decide which of the two universities would win the annual Varsity Yacht Race.
While Oxford ranked fourth in the fleet, Cambridge took first place in the overall event, so it was with great satisfaction that we took the Varsity cup home for a second time in a row.
Training in windy conditions on Thursday and Friday meant that our crew was very confident sailing into what was going to be a breezy weekend. There were three races on both Saturday and Sunday. We had an interesting time dealing with a very strong crew from Southampton Solent on Saturday but managed to finish ahead of them in the third race (2 – 2 – 1). Even though Southampton Solent did not compete the next day, we carried on working hard on crew coordination. Conditions were very tricky with some strong tide and ever-changing winds but some very good tactical decisions made us sail ahead of the fleet of 16 boats, finishing 1st in all three races.
For training purposes our second boat also took part in the event and managed to rank third overall, ahead of Oxford who only had one boat.
Next deadline for us are the BUSA Yacht Racing Championships on 11-14th April.
Good job team:
Matt ‘frube-lover’ Deacon-Smith - Helm
Jacob ‘let’s get some numbers’ Brubert - Tactics
Eddie ‘hour-long shower’ Romano - Main
Jack ‘posh boy’ Davies - Upwind Trim
Imogen ‘this is only my seventh Varsity’ Whittam - Downwind Trim
Barbara ‘halyard saver’ Muehlemann - Pit
Harry ‘the other posh boy’ Jones - Mast
Nick ‘let’s do what we know how to do, wait no…‘ d'Estais - Bow