British success at World Blind Sailing Championships

Our GBR team of visually impaired and sighted sailors have returned from the World Blind Sailing Championships in Sheboygan, US with silver medals in the B1 category, gold medals in the B2 category and gold and silver in the B3 categories and the Squadron Trophy for the highest ranked country overall. Another brilliant result for GBR sailing.

You might wonder if it’s sensible or safe to release a fleet of boats with VI sailors on board to race together. Fleet racing for blind sailors involves the same equipment and same rules as in mainstream racing but with a combination of sighted and VI sailors performing specific roles.

Blind fleet racing is raced in a team of four in sight categories B1, B2, and B3. B1 refers to VI athletes with least vision; B3 refers to partially sighted competitors with conditions that reduce their sight.

Each boat crew is made up of a sighted tactician and sighted crew with a visually impaired helm and mainsheet trimmer. Competitors can use watches with audible and vibrating signals for the countdown to the starts and possibly an audio compass, but no other specialist equipment is used.

GBR Blind Sailing has worked hard to increase the number of both sighted and visually impaired sailors within the training squad. For this regatta, there were four sighted and two VI sailors competing in their first international blind sailing competition.

It is exciting to see GBR expand and sailors experience the buzz of international regatta for the first time. GBR had a full country team of crews in the B1, B2 and B3 fleets plus an additional crew competing in the B3 fleet for experience. All four crews did well, showcasing our strong sailing experience and effective training programme.

The results:
GBR woke on  the final day with it all to play for in the B1 and B3 fleets. The wind was light from the South-South West, which gradually swung round to the West. The B2 and B3 teams were out first with two races scheduled.

The GBR B2 team had secured Gold with a day to spare but wanted to keep their clean sweep of wins and to give the other teams a strong day of racing.

GBR match raced the USA out to the right of the start, ending the week as USA had started with hunting GBR down. But GBR showed strong skills and tactics, tacking on each shift, seeing them take two wins, ending the regatta with straight wins.

B3’s had a point between them going into the last two races. With the wind shifting all the time it was the teams with their heads out of the boat that came out on top in each race. Tactician Justin Smith caught all the wind shifts allowing the B3B team to win the first race.

It was all down to the last race, with GBRa and GBRb going head to head. With a call of starboard from GBRb, GBRA had to take a penalty turn. The GBR B3A worked the wind shifts consistently and clawed their way back to first place at the top mark, taking the win to become World Champions. The GBR B3B team took silver.

The GBR B1 team was in joint first going into the last day of racing. The wind had dropped and very shifty and patchy by the time the B1 fleet got to the race course.

All teams were pushing hard to be on the start line at the gun, causing a general recall. Close racing in each of the three races with boats swapping positions with every wind shift and those that got on the left-hand side of the beat often came out in the lead.

The GBR B1 team battled hard but were literally pipped to the post by the US team. After a good week of racing the B1 team took silver.

The success in all three fleets means that the GBR team are the overall world champions and bring the Squadron Trophy back to the UK.

We would like to thank all involved this achievement would not have been possible without the support during the training and at the event.

Blind Sailing UK is looking for more VI and sighted sailors to join the training squad going forward. No prior experience is needed for Vis who want to attend a taster or training weekend. If you are interested, please contact Blind Sailing for more information:
Email: blind.sailing@yahoo.co.uk
Mobile: 07796 687914
Website: https://www.gbrblindsailing.co.uk