Following the success of the first Invitation Training at WPNSA earlier this year, the GBR Class Association for Toppers (ITCA-GBR) organised their 2nd Invitational Training Event at Draycote Water Sailing Club on 20th/21st August.
The class association had organised amazing coaches in the form of Draycote Academy head coach Steve Irish (who recently coached newly crowned Topper World Champion; Joe Rowe) and Tom Scott who has a wealth of experience in coaching within the Topper Fleet. Between Steve and Tom, the weekend of training was set to give the sailors first class
Topper coaching that the sailors could really benefit from. The class association had organised amazing coaches in the form of Draycote Academy head coach Steve Irish (who recently coached newly crowned Topper World Champion; Joe Rowe) and Tom Scott who has a wealth of experience in coaching within the Topper Fleet. Between Steve and Tom, the weekend of training was set to give the sailors first class
A number of the sailors arrived on the Friday evening and took the added opportunity to sail with the Draycote Youth and Junior Fleet in the Friday night race series which was a great fun way to start the weekend.
On the Saturday the winds had picked up slightly with a forecast of 14-18 knots in a consistent westerly direction along with beautiful sunny conditions. Following a short welcoming brief from ITCA, Steve and Tom were straight into the morning session with a plan to get the sailors out on the water as quickly as possible performing “Rabbit Runs” and close starting into a compressed gate. It was clearly evident that the group of Topper sailors were enjoying every minute with huge amounts of effort and focus being put in by every one of them.
For Sunday, the wind dropped to around 7-10 knots which complemented the stronger winds we had on the Saturday. Following a short classroom session where Steve and Tom laid out the plan for the morning, the Toppers were back out on the water working on Downwind tuning and gate choice. With the large expanse of water available at Draycote, the coaches split the group in two, working very closely with the individual sailors, then bringing them together so they could test out what had been learnt
The next Topper ITCA (GBR) National Series Event is at Carsington Sailing Club (NS1) on 17th and 18th September; entry is open on the ITCA Website (www.itca-gbr.co.uk/calendar). Topper Sailors will be keen to do as well as they can to put themselves in a position to receive an invite to the next ITCA GBR Invitational Training.
Source : Sile words by Jessica Powell & Mike Powell
