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Championships 2007

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Championships 2007 Report

The BUSA Championships have been the finale to the student windsurfing season for the last 13 years and is traditionally the toughest of all the core events with the racing taking place on the sea.

With light winds predicted for the whole weekend race officer Pete Boustred set 3 testing course races in the morning which did well to spread the fleet. The wind got up to a light F4 and some of the shortboarders managed to do well in the conditions. It was clear though, after the first set of races that the longboarders had the advantage as top UK racer Hugh Sims-Williams (Bristol) and James Bullied (Exeter) came home 1 and 2 in each of the races.

In the afternoon the upwind buoy was abandoned and a figure of 8 slalom course was set, by this time the winds had dropped slightly and the longboarders still had the advantage. In the end Sims-Williams came out on top followed by Bullied and Seb Graham of Southampton took the 3rd place. Dylan Watt of Southampton must also get a mention here as he ended up on equal points with Seb but lost out on 3rd due to his higher discards.

In the Women’s competition there was a very close battle for the top spots, with last year's champion Tanya Saleh (Bristol) battling it out with Imperial's Alice Monk and SWA series leader Erica Phillips of York. Once again Saleh came out on top followed by York, with Monk in third. This was a very close run thing with only a few points separating the top 5 girls.

In the second division racing was held in the lagoon at Calshot. Some quality racing took place and Dave Coulthurst of Bristol came out on top, followed by Giles Munro-Faure of Southampton and Steve Clareboats of Cardiff. In the ladies Jess Bennett of Southampton did extremely well to finish 9th overall and first girl. Gemma Onslow of Nottingham came 2nd with S Pongu of Birmingham claiming 3rd.

In the third division a great number of enthusiastic smiling beginners turned up and spent the Saturday fine tuning their skills and sizing up the opposition. The wind was a perfect direction and strength which meant that even the most inexperienced sailors saw their ability improve and by the afternoon everyone was psyched for racing. Andy Hart from Bath set a cracking pace round the course, closely followed by Mike Perkins (York). The Women’s third division title was taken by Rachel Newstead of York.

On the Sunday team racing was the order of the day and the decider for the overall university title. 13 teams in all entered which is a record and considering the light winds they all did exceptionally well. The big battle was between Bristol and Southampton, and Bristol started well winning the first race with Southampton in second and Oxford in third. Bristol needed to win the remaining two races to secure the overall championship title but the superior pumping tactics of the Southampton team came through and they took the next two races and the overall championship. Bristol came second and Cambridge managed to beat their old rivals Oxford into third.