We are delighted to share with you an exciting update from the OR Sailing Team.

This April marked the re-start of racing, and 5 Roedean alumnae (Caroline Bowen (No. 1, 1991-98), Leo Bowen (No. 4, 1996-2001), Fleur Dilton-Hill (No. 3, 1997-2000), Daisy Alden-Templeman (2007-14) and Jackie Wilson (No. 1, 1995-2002) competed in the Arrow J80 regatta at Queen Mary's, hosted by Royal Thames Yacht Club on Sunday 25 April.

The day was breezy and gusty as we undertook 6 races, each around 30 mins as a fleet of 8 in small open keelboats. Our crew quickly found their rhythm and we sailed a clean race avoiding the entanglements many of our competitors fell into, and had strong starts throughout. As the day progressed we found our teamwork and relaxed into enjoying the racing leading to us gaining three third positions. We completed the day in 5th overall which was a great success.

Roedean now has representation on the Arrow committee, so we were pleased we beat the only other committee member who was there. Other crews on the water included, Norwich, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Bryanston, Malvern, and Harrow with Tonbridge winning the regatta. Needless to say, we were the only women competing in the event. Many thanks to our ORA supporters who have funded the online training this year, it has helped us maintain momentum and is reflected in the good result.

2021 Arrow Regatta

We are also happy to confirm that we have an entry to the 2021 Arrow Regatta on the 1 - 3 of October this year. Due to the availability of boats this year, we have been allocated a Fairview Oceanis 37, which has a maximum capacity of 8 crew. This is a smaller crew size than the Sunsail F41 we have previously sailed, and we are hoping to compete with an exclusive OR team with no external ringers. This may very well put us in a unique position of being an all-female and all-alumnae team in the Regatta! We plan to do half a day of training with a professional coach on the Friday, racing on Saturday and Sunday with a formal dinner at the Cowes Yacht Haven on Saturday evening. The event is already well subscribed but we are keen to build up a larger pool of OR sailors so please get in touch if you are interested in future sailing events.

OR social event / training open to all standards

The current restrictions on Covid have made it very difficult to plan ahead but based on the best forecast, we are tentatively planning a social event in Central London and sailing training event at the Queen Mary Sailing Club in the first half of September. Both events will be open to all ORs who are interested in sailing, including those who haven’t raced with us in the past, and we are very keen to reach out to more ORs who take an interest in sailing.

Please get in touch with Sophia Cheung on roedean.alumni.sailing@gmail.com if you are interested in finding out more information or joining the team.

Caroline Bowen (No. 1, 1991-98) and Sophia Cheung (No. 1, 1991-95)