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2022 Victorian School Team Sailing Championships

The 2022 Victorian School Team Sailing Championships were recently held at Mornington Yacht Club. Three full days of sailing made for a busy weekend. There were 150 students competing from 21 teams. The teams racing was undertaken with pacers using an S-shaped course. Woodleigh was in Division 1, which meant tough competition.

Day 1 started at 7:30am with windy, cold weather. By the last few races of the day, there were bullets of wind reaching 20 knots. This meant a lot of capsizing, even for our Woodleigh Sailing team! Moving into Day 2, the weather was still chilly, with many gusts blowing through the course. At one point we had a visit from a pod of dolphins, who came to play near the finish line. Unfortunately, our team had a hard day; with capsizes on both the start and finish lines. Unfortunately, our final day of racing was short-lived for our team, as we were eliminated early in the knockout finals. At least this enabled us to get home early that day to catch up on schoolwork!

For the finals, race organisers moved the course closer to Mornington Pier so spectators could see the racing – we could certainly hear the cheering on the water! While the results didn't fall our way, our team is growing, and next year Woodleigh will be striving for a place on the podium!

Some highlights of the weekend included catching up with sailing friends from other schools; some of the friendships go a long way back from the days of Tackers and GreenFleet in Opti's. Mornington Yacht Club did a great job hosting the event – thank you to the many volunteers. The BBQ was a highlight, serving egg and bacon rolls for breakfast and burgers for lunch. This kept us, cold sailors, warm.

On behalf of the whole Woodleigh Sailing Team, I would like the thank our coach Will McKenzie, Mr Angelico, for assisting us, Mornington YC for hosting us and all the parents and volunteers who made this possible. This Wednesday, we are back training and building towards next summer's competition!

Daniel Laverty Y11