RYA Marlow Ropes Women's Match Racing Championship 2023 at the WPNSA

 

Victory for Otter Racing at Marlow Ropes Women's Match Racing Championship

Skipper Sophie Otter and her team claimed victory at the RYA Marlow Ropes Women's Match Racing Championship at Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy.

A popular fixture on the match racing calendar, this year's sell-out event saw ten teams battling it out over the weekend (16-17 September 2023) with close racing throughout.

The race committee smashed through 14 flights on the first day in a breeze of 10-15 knots which softened towards the end, with teams working the Elliot 6m keelboats hard to maximise speed.

The results did not reflect just how close the teams were as they came over the finish line, often at the same time or overlapped. Chief umpire Jack Fenwick noted this was all the more impressive as a number of teams were attending their first match racing event but "learning quickly by doing".

Topping the leaderboard overnight were Otter Racing and Juliette Kennedy, who each had a 100% win rate. Other star performances came from Cossie Lewis of the Royal Thames YC Academy and Ella Ashworth's team of friends, both new to helming match racing and doing well with great teamwork and a willingness to give it a go.

Another standout was Ruby Sunderland, at her first match racing event, whose team only won two of their nine races but showed great poise and signs of promise for the future, with instinctive sailing and reactions to the various situations at hand.

In the final, the experience of Otter Racing shone through and saw the team taking the first two race wins from Kennedy, controlling from start to finish. The third race was a much tighter affair, with just millimetres between the teams at the first leeward mark; Otter's team just managed to dive inside to take the lead, then held on to make it 3-0 for the overall win.

For skipper Sophie Otter and her crew of Amy Sparks, Hebe Hemming and Hatty Ward, it felt good to finally lay claim to the national title. As Sophie summed up: "We are super happy to take the win after feeling close to it the last few years. This event we tried really hard to strip things back to basics, keep it simple and enjoy ourselves. I think removing any pressure and focusing on the process really helped us to relax and perform during the event."