I’ve been a member of Draycote since 2000 and my son, Jonathan, has been Windsurfing since the age of 8, after having his first lesson at Hayling Island at the Watersports Festival that used to be held there.
Jonathan is now 20 and studies Mechanical Engineering at Bath University. Previously he was a pupil at Southam School & College, passing his GCSEs and A Levels.
He has followed me in the pursuit of Slalom racing and Speed sailing and has also gained his instructors qualifications. He has recently just come back from a season instructing in Greece before attending his 2nd year at Bath University.
Weymouth Speed Week is an annual International event for Sailing craft and many amazing craft and personalities have competed at this event. The event is held every October for 7 days. Each day is ranked, but the final results are based on who has gone the fastest over a 500 metre course that is set by the organisers in Portland Harbour within the 7 day period (10am to 4pm every day). The event is run from the National Sailing Academy where the Olympic Teams train. Each competitor is given a GPS which tracks your speed runs and is uploaded and analysed every day to rank the competitors.
The event started in 1972 and was mainly attended by standard and non-standard sailing craft. As new craft emerged, the Windsurf started to be the dominant force. Then Kiters started to dominate, and now Foiling Kiters are currently the dominant (fastest) craft.
Today there are several Craft Categories: Kiteboards, Sailboards (Windsurfs), Wingboards.
The Sailboard category is the largest fleet and is broken down into 3 Fleets: Amateur, Gold Fleet (Semi-Pro) and Pro
Jonathan had come second in the Amatuer fleet last year and the rules state the podium placed competitors had to move up a fleet, so this was already a big jump for him to move up to the Gold Fleet.
Most of the week had marginal conditions. Jonathan had secured a good first place (by only a few tenths of a knot) early in the week and people were impressed with his speed in the challenging (fickle) conditions. But it all came down to the last day and last few hours as the wind picked up (the best conditions all week).
Jonathan, I’m sure will be able to explain the various rivalries and ups and downs that happened through the week, but suffice to say he managed to put in a few great runs on the last day to secure an even bigger margin for first place.
His rankings were:-
1st Gold Fleet
3rd Overall when ranked against all Sailboards without a Foil (Ams / Gold / Pros)
7th Overall (out of 61) when ranked against all Sailboards (Fin / Foil / Ams / Gold / Pros)
12th Overall out of 90 competitors (all fleets and craft)
