Sailing Report

Yesterday Oliver Warring and Harry Wykes competed in the National IAPS under 13 racing championship. They had been preselected out of 35 preparatory schools to race in the very first IAPS racing championship. The event was held at the Olympic Sailing centre at Weymouth Portland which will host the 2012 sailing Olympic events.

Oliver and Harry sailed against 15 other schools in this championship over a period of 4 hours and finished 5 races on the Olympic sailing course. In the first race Oliver and Harry had a perfect start dominating the race, starting on starboard and then tacking onto port to cross the whole fleet; a classic text book manoeuvre. They comfortable won the first race and hence will be remembered as wining the first IAPS sailing race. Overall in strengthening winds they always finished in the top 4 places and coming third overall on the day. This is a remarkable achievement considering the high level of competition.

We now hope to build upon this success by forming a preparatory school sailing team which is already meeting on a Thursday evening for theory and race practise. It is also hoped that Oliver and Harry will compete in the  Senior South East team racing championships to be held at Ringwood in late May and also for the Ardingly Challenge which is again a senior event against Eton College and six other sailing teams.

Well done Oliver and Harry on a terrific racing result. Ardingly sailing is very proud of you both.