Our OB sailing team consists of OBs ranging from 1982-2023 leavers and on the first weekend of October, the team competed in the Arrow Trophy in the Solent.
The annual competition takes place out of Cowes with yacht racing on the Saturday and Sunday. It was a fabulous weekend resulting in the OBs coming second in their class, beating Pangbourne, Malvern, Oundle, Sherborne, Kings Canterbury, Stowe and Cranleigh.
OB Minty Petch (Hunter ’23) shares her report from the exciting weekend competing with other OBs…
The Arrow Trophy was raced by schools all over.
On Friday late afternoon we left from Hamble and made our way across to the Isle of Wight. Thankfully we had some of the most gorgeous weather, and the best sunset which was a great way to start the weekend. When we arrived, we moored up for the night alongside some very friendly competitors. The rest of the evening was spent eating fish and chips while relaying some old and new Bryanston tales.
Saturday morning started with a race briefing at eight o’clock, before setting off for our race. Our first race started with a solid upwind, a good breeze coming through and a set of very determined sailors. However, we had trouble on the downwind legs with the spinnaker, struggling to find a rhythm within the team and successfully gybe. Adding to this, both our spinnaker sheets came loose on the second downwind, dropping us back a few places to finish in fifth – but the team spirit was definitely not lost.
The wind started to pick up for the second race and we were fighting hard with other boats around. It was extremely exciting and as the day went on, our OB team got more efficient at working together and communicating on the boat. Having sorted our previous problems downwind we managed to take second place.
Having a second place under our wing, we were full of adrenaline. The wind had picked up even more and all boats were issued by the race committee to put a reef in their sail. After a bit of faffing with lines we were on our way again. We didn’t have the most amazing start but were mid fleet and the team was working hard. We managed to crawl our way back up. Every tack, mark rounding, gybe and manoeuvre was mastered by this point, all our jobs on the boat were clear. We were having the most fun, apart from one crew member that unfortunately got seasick, but stuck out the racing with the best grit and determination! We finished this race with an astonishing bullet. Getting a first-place result was just what the team needed to prove what we were capable of.
The fourth race saw the team getting tired, despite having eaten a lot of snacks. The wind was up even more again, and all boats were told not to put up the kite. Looking on the positive side this was one less thing we needed to worry about! We raced hard and finished this race on the podium with a third place. The team couldn’t have been in higher spirits with the results so far.
On Saturday evening there was a lovely dinner for the competitors, meeting people from other teams and having a great time. We definitely had the biggest table as we were joined by additional OBs who weren’t racing but came to support the team on the water and socialise in the evening. It was great to meet everybody.
Sunday brought some rainier and cooler weather, a strong breeze and some very excited sailors. We had a slightly different team for Sunday’s racing as we wanted to give as many OBs an opportunity to race as possible. The day started off very well with some very close racing on the start line and throughout, we got a solid third place, pleased to still be on the podium!
We went into our last race of the weekend giving it our absolute all, and the whole team pulled through massively and excelled themselves on board. We were leading the whole of this race, even overtaking the fleet ahead who had a 5-minute head start! We created a comforting gap with the boat behind, until the very last leg where they managed to find a bit more speed than us on the downwind. The finish was very close, but we managed to keep our focus and finished in first place. What a way to end the weekend.
Overall Bryanston came second in Fleet 2 of the Arrow Trophy, coming with it a promotion to the top fleet for next year. This is the best result Bryanston has achieved in the Arrow Trophy in over 20 years!
This result is only thanks to all the people involved making this event happen: Bryanston of course for putting forward a team, Emily Dresser (Harthan ’14) who did an immense amount of admin and was our epic helm on the weekend, and Penny Rainbow (Hunter ’97) and Claire Dresser (Purbeck ’87) who enabled more OBs to get out on the water and support the racers, and of course every OB involved! Thank you all for such an amazing weekend, it was the most amount of fun with the best people. I can’t wait to see what the future holds and the Arrow Trophy will return in 2025.
