British Keelboat League

Published 11:19 on 13 Dec 2024

During August and September, 5 Jersey youth sailors had the opportunity to compete in the British Keelboat League, first in the David Haw memorial and then in the British keelboat final. We were able to achieve this through generous sponsorship from St. Helier yacht club as well as being awarded a wild card entry into the final in recognition of the difficulties of living in jersey and competing in the UK.

Both regattas were held at the Royal Southern Yacht Club in the Hamble. The schedule of racing was much different to what we are used to in Jersey with double the number of teams to boats we were switching in and out of boats every few races with fast pace two lap raced that lasted about 13 minutes.

Our first regatta, the David Haw memorial regatta, started with the Jersey sailors flying to Southampton the day before as we had offered to sail a boat over from the Isle of Wight which would be our first time sailing a J/70 and sailing together as a team. During the two-day regatta we had ups and downs in the conditions securing respectable results while learning the boat. Our main takeaways from this regatta were learning how to effectively communicate in high pressure situations and how much we all loved to sail these boats. At the end of the weekend the team secured a mid-fleet result which we were happy with.

Competing the the British keelboat final was a step up for the team, it started with a three-hour delay for two of the competitors in jersey airport and an unfavourable forecast which caused the original team to bring in another Jersey sailor. The regatta started with a 2-hour delay and only 30 minutes of practice in very strong winds with a new teammate. For most of the regatta we were not allowed to use the spinnakers which in some cases was a blessing. As a team we got the hang of sailing in these conditions and thoroughly enjoyed it, although we did get a bit cold. As far as results went, we did well considering tough competition against match racing and keelboat champions.

Having the opportunity to do this sailing was amazing, keelboat sailing is a great bridge between dinghy sailing and bigger yachts. We hope to have the opportunity to take part in these events again and would love to see an event like this happen in Jersey.

2024 Jersey Keelboat League Team.