Rutland Training Weekend 7-8th August 2004

A MPS training weekend was held at Rutland SC on the 7/8th August and with a turnout of 11 boats ranging from beginners to the current world champion it was a great spread of talents.

The aim of the weekend was not only to help the new guys in the fleet, but also to improve the higher end of the fleet by doing some fine tuning. The fleet turned up and immediately Matt and Graeme went about helping the new guys set their rigs up, a very important aspect to sailing these boats is having the rig matched to your weight. Once everyone was set up Sten gave a terrific session on boat handling on shore which covered everything from safe tacking to wire to wire tacking and reverse kite drops.

Once on the water the fleet were set a windward - leeward course so the coaches could get video footage of each boat to use in the de-briefing later. The video showed up some interesting aspects of where people are going wrong and also showed how some have improved massively (take a bow Paul Clements).

Sunday dawned with a 15kt breeze blowing straight down the resevoir, great training weather. The fleet started off with a tacking on the hooter exercise. This really showed how quickly you can improve with most really getting to grips with better tacking and Richard Smith was even seen doing some blinding wire to wire's. After the tacking it was time for some downwind blasting and hoisting, gybing, and dropping practice. After some personal tuition most of the fleet got to grips with it very well and some were seen doing fabulous gybes after only a few atempts at a new technique.

The video work was excellent, a big thanks to Maddie (Jamie's Missus) for her superb camera work. It will be edited and narrated for all to see as soon as possible, it gives a great insight into the mistakes which are common and some fantastic sequences of how to tame these beasts in big breeze.

Thanks to all at Rutand SC, Matt Toone, Sten and Madeline for all their help. A special thanks to Tim Tav for providing the rib, it was a great advert for the class to look as professional as we did ! We will be planning more events like this within this year and next with a regional bias so you don't have to travel too far.