North Optimist at LLSC
High-Performance Big Fleet Racing Heads North Link
Leigh & Lowton SC in the North West of England has been offering one of the biggest and most challenging big-fleet open winter racing series for many years; The Crewsaver Tipsy Icicle Series. The handicap fleet attracts over 180 boats from all across the North of England and North Wales every Sunday from January to March each year. Chris Leigh, Junior Coordinator at the club, hopes to develop the fleet even further by attracting high-performance Optimist sailors to join in the racing series and take advantage of the big-fleet racing already on offer. On 3 Sundays which tie-in with IOCA Optimist Saturday training, Leigh & Lowton SC has organised a North-Optimist Winter Championship with a professional OOD and committee boat accurate start lines. Chris plans to video the Optimist starts and publish the videos on a North-Optimist YouTube channel to provide sailors with feedback to review and learn from their performance.
Chris has conceived a new initiative ‘North Optimist’ which aims to complement the winter racing series with high-quality training clinics targeted to high-performance Optimist sailors and delivered by experienced IOCA Optimist squad coaches
When asked about the new initiative, Chris explained “All too often, sailors in the North consider the Optimist a training boat and as soon as they can race they defect to Toppers. Through the development of a high-performance offering in the North that hopes to rival the quality training and racing available in South Wales and on the South coast of England, we expect to see a reduction in this defection rate. The initiative will not only provide much needed training and big fleet racing opportunities for advanced Optimist sailors all across North and Central England and Wales, but will hopefully help change the perception of the Optimist dinghy and inspire the next generation, that the Optimist is a high-performance racing dinghy that can offer exhilarating and highly competitive racing for sailors until the age of 15.”
October half-term saw the successful introduction of the first training clinic offered by North Optimist, with 14 sailors from the North and West zone squads and GBR National and Intermediate squads, benefiting from coaching in advanced race training tactics and techniques from RYA squad coaches, Luke Shaw, Sarah Williams and Richard Thorougood. The training clinic was well-organised with sailor-instructor ratios kept very low to maximise individual attention and feedback, and 3 consecutive training days to consolidate skills and develop deeper learning. As a volunteer-led initiative parents were encouraged to join in and the result was a collaborative experience with fabulous hot lunches being served up for the sailors and their families each day creating a great social atmosphere each lunchtime topped off with a game of football amongst the sailors before the start of the afternoon training session.
North Optimist sailors are being encouraged to join in with IOCA Saturday winter training programme and the Sunday North-Optimist Winter Championship series organised at Leigh and Lowton SC, and in April a second high-performance coaching clinic will be led by the National Optimist coach, Alan Williams which will focus on developing the sailors’ faster boat speed.
For further details regarding the training and racing dates on offer, please see the north optimist website at www.northoptimist.uk Chris can be contacted at [email protected]
Article courtesy of Optimist E News Letter November 2014. Photography copyright Angus Matherson
