A Challenging Weekend of Racing Brings Strong Results for Team Portsmouth
A team of 12 Portsmouth sailors travelled to Torquay for this year’s BUCS Fleets event, ready to take on the competition in the Firefly fleet. Despite facing light and tricky winds throughout the weekend, the team showed resilience and skill, putting up an impressive performance. In this recap, Curtis McKay reflects on the challenges and successes of the event, highlighting the hard work and teamwork that led to Portsmouth finishing 5th out of 16 universities.
Light winds loomed ahead as 12 Portsmouth sailors eagerly travelled down to Torquay for this year's BUCS fleets. We all entered the Firefly fleet, with a total of 67 boats racing together. Saturday brought the promised light winds, but the race committee, determined as ever, sent us out anyway. Despite the gentle and shifty breeze, the racing got underway quickly. The fleet proved tough, with some of the best university sailors in the country bringing their A-game. However, we put up a great fight.
Ben Osborne and Johnnie Rudd had a blinder of a day, finishing in the top 10 in one race and just outside the top 10 in the next two. Louise Davies and Grace Capers, sailing for our women’s team, also put in strong performances with consistent finishes in the top quarter of the fleet. We wrapped up the day feeling proud and discussed our results during the debrief. We all quickly agreed that it had been a tough day's racing, with the biggest challenge being keeping the boat moving. This was made more difficult by the streaky breeze and dead patches scattered around the course—it felt like a game of Minesweeper.
Sunday arrived quickly, and the conditions looked even lighter than Saturday. Still, the race committee sent us out. The entire fleet launched and sailed out of the harbour entrance, but we barely got 30-40 metres before stopping and drifting for the next hour. We were certain racing would be cancelled, but we waited for a decision. Then, suddenly, a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon—wind! We finally started moving and made our way over to the racecourse ready to race. The wind was even lighter, more patchy, and shiftier than the previous day. To make things more challenging, a large cargo ship had parked itself just off the racecourse, adding to the difficulty.
Racing was tough, but Portsmouth proved their strength once again. Zoe Smith and Rachel Palmer moved up positions in each race, while Curtis McKay and George Ross also managed to improve their overall standing by 4 places. The day ended with our team finishing 5th out of 16 universities—a great result!
I would like to give huge thanks to Ben Osborne, George Ross, and Andi Hoxha for their help with six trips to Torquay, making this great event possible for us, as well as to Annie Couchman for arranging transport, and finally to Tom Harris for his hard work getting us entered! Thanks to everyone involved, and a huge well done once again!
Curtis McKay
