Newcastle University Sailing Club

George Yeoman and Ed Fitzgerald have just won the FISU Match Racing World Championships!Sailing as part of GBR1 along with 3 other sailors they only dropped 3 races the whole event! GOOD WORK BOYS!

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sport/news/item/newcastle-students-selected-for-world-student-sailing-eventRead the recent press report of Ed and George

Hey guys, Its that time of year again, When you are choosing where to go to uni!  Newcastle is a great place for people who are interested in the social side of life.  The sailing club here is a great environment for everyone who is keen in racing, cruising or indeed just the social side.

If you are interested in RACING then this is a good place to be.  We are not known as a sailing uni but we are making waves.  We have had one team medal in each year and the path has shown we are only getting better.

 If you are interested in sailing for purely the enjoyment of sailing we have some great opportunities for you!  There is social sailing every Sunday and a yachting trip at the beginning of the year to give everyone a taster!

As for the SOCIALS, every Wednesday we meet at a pub/bar have some casual drinks before moving onto the nightclub where the sports teams meet.  There are also events throughout the year that are ALWAYS worthwhile!

Any questions don’t hesitate to email.  Contacts are on the contact page of this website!

Look forward to seeing you in September.

YACHTINGThe Easter started with the Yachting nationals in Port Solent.  This is sailed in equally matched sunfast 37s with about 40 uni teams taking part.This year started slowly for Team Newcastle with some top tens and a black flag leaving the team just out side the top ten.  However, with a good next few days with one day missed out due to too much wind and a first and second the team were right in contention.  Going round the last mark of the last race things were looking good and second place overall seemed all but in our hands.  However 10m from the finish a big gust caused a broach and this lead to the finish line being missed and 8 places being lost. This lead to Newcastle finishing 5th overall equalling last year.TEAM RACINGTeam racing was held in Chew Valley in Bristol.  After a competent start Newcastle made the gold league.  However, due to fickle conditions the leagues were not quite completed  Having not had the greatest of starts to the gold league this left Newcastle in a tricky position.  The team beat last years champions Oxford but this was not enough to help the team as the round was called off due to lack of wind.  The team showed potential all week and showed some good results against some good teams.MATCH RACINGThis year match racing was held in Cowes in Sonars.  After showing good boat speed in the first day and made it in to the gold fleet.  This then followed with a disappointing start where miss matched boats caused more than one team issues.  Team Newcastle missed out on the semi finals by one match win.  This then meant that we were in the petite finals.  By winning both of the matches the team finished in 5th place.  A disappointing end to the event

George Yeoman and Ed Fitzgerald have been selected to sail with GBR1 at the student worlds in Crete this summer.  George and Ed were both part of the bronze medal winning team at BUCS last year.  They are teaming up with gold medallist and their normal helm, top under 23 match racer, Andy Shaw from Southampton.  The rest of the team is made up of Ben Ainsworth from Southampton and Rachel Williamson from Portsmouth.

BUCS Championships Preview

Yachting:

Yachting this year is going to be held at Port Solent.  After finishing a very creditable 5^th last year, Newcastle will be looking to improve from here with a basically unchanged team!

Team Racing

Team racing finals is being held at Chew Valley in Bristol.  After qualifying directly from the northern qualifier the first team have been training hard and are looking forward to getting involved in the finals.  After qualifying for the gold fleet last year but missing out on the quarters, the first team will be looking to make the next step up into the knock out stages and a chance of adding to the gold medal from the fleet racing.

Match Racing

Last year match racing was the highlight of the season with the team finishing in 3^rd winning BUCS bronze medals.  This year we are looking for the win with the boats changing from j80s to sonars, and the venue from Queen Mary to Cowes.  And with two of the GBR1 Match Racing team for the FISU Student Worlds on the team chances are looking good for a northern team to disrupt the southern dominance.

This season has lead to a great chance of success in the up coming BUCS events.The first team of Ben Crompton, George Yeoman, Graham Rome, Ed Fitzgerald, Georgie Akin-Smith & Tom Altmann sucessfully qualified for BUCS team racing and had the perfect practice event at UKTRA in West Kirby where they finished 7th overall and 3rd Uni.

This weekend saw the firsts and seconds heading their separate ways to London and Sheffield respectively.  This was not to be the 1sts finest hour as some untimely capsizes and some more than sceptical umpire decisions they found themselves in the silver fleet and struggled against a Royal Thames team that finished Newcastle’s run to the quarters.The 2s however were in much better form and luck as they found there way through the round robin at a very competitive Sheffield event.  However they did not progress any further than the quarters as they were knocked out by Southampton.

Next was the first BUCS event of the year in the form of the fleet racing.  We sent 4 boats in the for of George Yeoman and Georgie Akin-Smith in the Firefly fleet, Ben Crompton and Tom Altmann in an RS200 and Doug Conway in a Phantom in the handicap fleet and Ed Bates and Jamie Bridgefoot in the Laser 2s.