20/04/2019
So, how did BUSA go down? The BUSA Yachting Championships is the British University Sailing Association's annual national student yacht racing competition. It is held over 4 days, this year from Monday 15th to Thursday 18th April with 22 boats competing. The first three days feature the Qualifying series and the final day features the Championship Series and the Trophy Series. The top eight universities from the Qualifying series compete in the Championship Series, with the remaining 14 boats facing off in the Trophy Series.
The planned racing for the Qualifying Series varies from day to day, with Day 1 involving 3 shorter buoy racing courses, Day 2 involving 2 shorter buoy racing courses and 1 extended coastal race and Day 3 involving 1 short buoy race courses and a longer (~5 hour) coastal race.
Day 1 was very windy, blowing mid 20s and gusting up to 30, definitely a day for a reef on the main and we also made the decision to hold back on the spinnaker, which proved a reasonable call given the marginal gains it provided to those game enough to hoist and the myriad of problems some boats ended up facing. Unfortunately our best start at the line ended up as a general recall. Cambridge placed reasonably consistently for the day, 13th, 9th and 9th ending up ranking 10th by end of Day 1; 9th university and only 1 point behind 7th and 8th. The evening of Day 1 featured the main social event for the week, the 'black tie' dinner.
The conditions on Day 2 were dramatically different, with winds a lot lighter and sea state a lot calmer. Despite being fairly happy with our sailing in general, our results slipped in races 4 and 5, placing 14th and 12th. Race 6 was the extended coastal race, and well into the first set of upwind beats, Cambridge were comfortably up with the leaders in 4th-5th place. Unfortunately, a combination of bad luck with wind shifts and being tactically outperformed by several competitors and their superior knowledge of the Solent meant we ended up placing 16th. Overall the day's performance meant we slipped to 13th overall and 11th university.
The final day of qualifiers provided even more mixed conditions, with races initially delayed for ~3 hours due to lack of wind. Things were just getting started after lunchtime with Cambridge managing a much needed great start only for another general recall to be announced. All was underway for another start when fog set in and races delayed for another ~3 hours. All the delays meant the intended long coastal race of the day was not to be, and instead a single short buoy race would see out the day. Sailing in the race was generally ok, but we weren't able to improve on a poor start and we ended up with a 16, which was our discarded race, placing Cambridge at 14th at the end of the qualifying series.
The Trophy Cup competition on the fourth and final day constituted 3 standard round the buoy races in great sailing conditions and ended up being Cambridge's best day at BUSA, performing best out of all teams competing in the Trophy cup, placing 4th, 4th and finishing with a very much enjoyed 1st place on the final race. Bristol went into the day in a better position on points and deservedly won Gold in the Trophy Cup, however Cambridge were very pleased to take home the Silver medals and an overall 10th place at BUSA.
CUYC Racing would like to congratulate all BUSA competitors as well as acknowledge our Varsity rivals and friends at Oxford University Yacht Club. We also wish to offer a big thank you to all our supporters, particularly Cambridge University Yacht Club, the University of Cambridge Sport Centre and our collaborators and colleagues at CUCrC.
Cambridge crew: Chris Cantillo Garrett Bray Laurence Cochrane Anna Prescott Holly MacAskill Karen Louise Niels van Fraassen Freddie Scott
