Sailing to Victory

Despite the strong winds, it was smooth sailing for the Winchester team as they raced to victory at the British Schools Dinghy Racing Association (BSDRA) Southern Area Championships. The event, held on 4th May at the Spinnaker Sailing Club, was organised by Winchester College and welcomed 13 teams from 10 schools, including Eton, MCS, RGS, Clifton, Cranleigh, Seaford, Ryde, Tonbridge, and Claire’s Court.

The weather was perfect, with sunshine and squally winds hitting 25 mph at times. In a day of non-stop racing, each team had 12 races in the round-robin, at the end of which MCS were unbeaten and Winchester and RGS were tied second with just one loss. Competition for the top prize was fierce.

The team captain, Foster, reflected on the tense final stages which led to their overall victory:

“The Southern team-racing regional championships brought out some of our best team performances to date – after proceeding through the round-robin stage with only one loss, we sailed through to the semi-finals as second seed. Two consecutive race wins then put us into the finals against MCS, which went the distance as we took one race each. The decider started off poorly for us, but our non-stop determination and desire to win presented us with a comeback on the last two legs of the race, where we managed to clinch the Championship with a convincing 1, 2, 3 finish. Thanks to MCS for a great final.”

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