RTG 1
he first RYA RTG was on the 9th to the 10th of November, at Bristol Corinthiun Water Sports Centre. During the 1st RYA RTG training weekend, throughout the weekend, there was absolutely no wind. This made it very difficult to get out and onto the water, meaning that, except for an hour and a half, we spent no time on the water and had to do land drills, fitness, and theory.
It was a relatively short drive to the club, with it being just over 2 hours, and leaving just after school, we arrived at about half past 6. This gave us time to unpack and have an early night ready for the weekend ahead. On the morning of the first day, the first thing we learnt about was weather fronts. This was really interesting as I had never learnt about these before and usually just looked at what the weather forecasts told me and just based what I would do upon that. After this, everyone rigged their boats and brought them down to the slipway to do calibration. Calibration is where you mark your sail settings on the controls so you can be consistently correct in each condition. After this was done, everyone practiced reefing. The coaches made this really fun and did reefing races and by the end everyone could confidently reef their sails. After this, the coaches sent everyone in for some lunch. After lunch, everyone was told to get changed as we were heading out onto the water. When we were on the water, we did reefing races again, but with the added difficulty of being on the water. This was fun however I definitely didn’t win. Afterwards, we did 3 pumping races and then headed in for the day.
On day 2, we started off the day with some stretching. We stretched everything and afterwards, split up into three groups, where the coaches asked everyone what they would like out of the RTG’s and what they could do to improve it. I want to improve my upwind tactics, get top 50 in the worlds, get better, learn as much as possible and have fun in the process. Dylan wants to get top 10 in 4.2’s in the worlds. This brought us up to the 2 minutes’ silence, which everyone observed as it was remembrance Sunday. After this, we continued on with some more theory, and then had an early lunch. After lunch, we all went down to the boats to do a practical activity and learn about the centre of effort on a sail when the controls where changed, by turning the boat on its side, putting water on the sails, changing the controls and watching where the water went. After this, we went for lunch and after lunch, we did a bit of a quiz to earn some prizes, and then the coaches decided to end it there, at around 2:30. Overall it was a very fun and educational weekend, which was also very valuable.