The Wilson Trophy

Royal Thames again entered a team for the 2011 Wilson Trophy.  This
year's team was helms: Matthew Podger, Sam Maxfield and Tony Adams and
crews: Becky Shuttleworth, Nicola Groves and Kerry Capps.

For the 62nd instalment of the Wilson Trophy, 32 of the top teams out
there assembled from noon on Friday for two and a half days of frenetic
racing.  The Thames started well in perfect team racing conditions.  Four
wins were recorded for only two losses.  Pleasing wins came against
experienced teams like New York Yacht Club and Rutland.  The Thames team
raced well and demonstrated the decent pace they'd shown all season,
ending the day on a high and well up the Swiss League rankings.

Saturday was unfortunately a different story with a series of tough
races in very breezy conditions.  The Swiss League operates by always
pitting teams against other teams on the same number of wins.  We were
now to race some of the teams at the top of the standings who were on a
"bounce" down the rankings, whilst we'd been on the up all Friday.  Thames
struggled to get to grips of solid American teams like Buns and Ammo and
Ungrateful Colonists and eventual UK quarter finalists like BUSA and
Spinnaker.  Only one race against West Kirby was a loosing procession
from the start but we were guilty of trying to force wins and getting on the wrong side
of Umpire calls in crucial positions.  A lack of pace in the breeze saw
us rarely in 1st at mark one which always left us with a lot of racing
to do against competent teams.  Thames ended brightly however with two
wins and then we focused our attention on the excellent evening's
entertainment!

Sunday ended more positively in lighter, brighter conditions.  More
dominant starting for the pin end of the left hand biased line saw three
bullets and three back to back wins to finish against Cambridge, Exiles
and Barracuda.  This put us into a big mid-table group all on 9 wins
total.

We look forward to re-forming towards the end of the summer and building
on a long and constructive season to really put us in the mix against
the best teams.