Cadet World Championships Weymouth 2014 23 Aug 2014
With barely time to draw breath after a windy Nationals, three of our teams entered the Promotional Regatta run alongside the World Championships in Weymouth from 15th to 22nd August. After the sometimes brutal conditions of the Nationals, Scarlett & Amy in Scallywag, Ben & Josh in Whatever and Joe this time crewed by Freddie Pitcher in Pure Genius were glad to see the forecast was something less than survival conditions.
A couple of days measuring finished on the Friday with the practice race where both Scallywag & Pure Genius registered top 20 finishes.
Day One started well with Race One seeing a 1,2,3, from east coast boats, one of which was one of our teams. Ben & Josh kicked off their campaign with a superb 3rd. So a good day’s racing for Whatever was cemented with a 17th in Race Two leaving them fifth overall overnight.
Scallywag was well placed with a 13th & 9th and Joe & Freddie (who had only sailed together a handful of times) with Freddie only having been in a Cadet on two previous occasions, decided to get one of their discards out of the way early with a 34th & 29th.
As the week went on we saw some glorious sailing weather and some excellent sailing. Whilst the World Championships were hotly contested by a mix of nationalities, it seemed that the strength in depth of the east coast was to the fore in the Promos.
As the week continued our guys started to put a solid series together with all of them achieving top ten results. A seventh in Race Six helped Joe & Freddie to 28th overall. Although Ben & Josh were disappointed to drop out of the top ten in the last day an eighth in Race Three and a sixth in Race Nine helped them to a great 12th overall – quite an achievement in only Ben’s second year of helming. The plaudits however must go to Scarlett & Amy who put together a fantastic series including two bullets in Races Six & Eight to finish sixth overall.
The World Championships themselves went down to the last day with the superb Australians Thomas & Sophie Alexander holding their nerve when others couldn’t to turn out winners by 25 points. Sisters Lucy & Cally Terkelsen from Stone in third place, helmed the first British boat.
All in all a splendid event which was topped of by a Red Arrows fly past – (It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!)