One of the top 50 sailing events in the World you need to compete in during ones life! Wow what a claim, was it true or just hyperbole? The WLYC 24hr Race is World famous for dinghy sailors and a real endurance event for competitors and their club supporters. 30 trophies, 61 dinghies, 800 sailors and 1500 supporters all gathered around the marine lake, in F 2-3 southerly breeze in sunny September. We had two entries in this 47th event with 61 teams entered, being the cream of the UK dinghy racers. Also for the first time, Fireflies were invited to the event, joining the traditional GP 14s with their kites, the Enterprise class, and Larks again with kites. The Fireflies were asked so as to attract more young crews for which they are very well suited being the team race dinghy choice for most Universities and Schools.
One of the top 50 sailing events in the World you need to compete in during one’s life! Wow what a claim, was it true or just hyperbole? The WLYC 24hr Race is World famous for dinghy sailors and a real endurance event for competitors and their club supporters. 30 trophies, 61 dinghies, 800 sailors and 1500 supporters all gathered around the marine lake, in F 2-3 southerly breeze in sunny September. We had two entries in this 47th event with 61 teams entered, being the cream of the UK dinghy racers. Also for the first time, Fireflies were invited to the event, joining the traditional GP 14s with their kites, the Enterprise class, and Larks again with kites. The Fireflies were asked so as to attract more young crews for which they are very well suited being the team race dinghy choice for most Universities and Schools.
West Oxfordshire SC members gathered together an Elite Squad of fading club racers and some very Up and Coming Youth to enter two dinghies at this World famous event, a Club Rondar Firefly recently aquired thanks to a grant from Sport England and an Enterprise were our race hardened “steads”. Then if the challenge wasn’t enough they let in Guy from Llangorse SC to the team, another mature “has been”.
Most importantly the team consisted of a number of youth and late teenage club sailors, namely two Bens, Alex, Ollie, Claire, Moira, Tom, and Emily. The plan was the energetic youth would do the hard racing whilst the club elders, parents and guests cheered them on, and drank their health and vitality – and then if necessary did some racing at unsocial hours, hence the invite to Guy…..would the 2 to 6am slot be ok they endearingly asked?
Various WOSC Club stalwarts gathered the team together, their dinghies and spare parts, plus marquee style Mission Control Tent, small igloo tents and endless sleeping bags and sailing gear, not forgetting stylish woolly hats (Tom had a sky blue one!) We even had a cooker, tea bags and a lot of cakes and biscuits for those midnight hours.
The race started – WOSC were there or about, but not Tony and crew who in the firefly were the wrong side of the island having a panoramic look around. Was the 1.5 minutes delay in starting going to matter at the end? No matter as it happened, quickly the WOSC firefly was up to 18th out of 59, but behind the WOSC Enterprise sailed by Tom and Paul Deane who came off the water in 6th place after sailing 6 hours straight.
During the event we sailed 2 hr stints (except for Tom!) with F1 type pit stops when crews changed. Would changeovers work well? Would collisions and capsizes entail? No actually it all went very well and other than Alex leaving a boat full of water with no bailer to Mike and Guy to sail, things went amazingly smoothly.
Highlights of 24 hrs of racing were numerous… waking Ben at 11.30pm to go sailing at midnight, he’s 11! Then he offered to get up and race again at 6am. Ben and Guy did the 3rd fastest lap at the Midnight hr trophy. Ollie and Alex variously helmed us up to 15th at one point, our highest recorded place, one place behind the WOSC enterprise. Tony did several stints showing his youthfulness, or is it endurability! Mike said he enjoyed crewing Guy, much to everyone’s surprise. Moira, Claire and Emily all showed the lads how to, by their spirit and determined racing attitude at whatever hour they were called to sail.
Final words of thanks to the Support Crew led by Roger, who dragged the team up to WLYC, Stockport and set up Mission Control, dispensed cake and tea and motivation, and some hard stuff in the dark midnight hours.
24hrs later, the cannons boomed over the lake for each team boat as we crossed the line. WOSC came in a very credible 14th in the Enterprise and 5th in this class, and 18th in the Firefly , 1st in class, very credibly placed amongst the GP14s and Enterprises . Will we do the 24hr race again? Did it live up to the hype? Oh yes most certainly! Amazing fun!