Fast and furious

Andy Nicholson previews this weekend's team racing spectacular, The smart Wilson Trophy

This weekend sees 32 teams take to the water to contest The smart Wilson Trophy. This team racing event has it’s roots back in 1949 and is widely regarded as one of the premier annual team racing event in the world and attracts teams from Europe and the USA.

Always held and organised by the West Kirby Sailing Club in the north west of England, racing takes place over the Saturday and Sunday in a matched fleet of Firefly dinghies. Each round is contested between two teams over a short course, which usually takes six minutes to complete, meaning that the racing is fast, furious an aggressive. Points are scored from one to six (a total of 21 points), depending on the finishing order of the individual boats, this means winning team will score 10 points or less and the losing team 11 points or more. There’s no point one team member winning the race, if his team mates are in fourth and sixth place, so racing is not over until the very last second the last boat crosses the line.

One of the principle reasons why the event has flourished at West Kirby (apart from their enthusiasm) is the man made marine lake. The club is situated on the Dee Estuary and the marine lake provides a permanent racing venue, which gets topped up every two weeks on the Spring tide. One mile long and 300 meters wide, the boundaries of the lake provide for a natural embankment for spectators. With races only taking six minutes, even if the wind is across the lake there is plenty of room for the course to be laid.

The course is an S shape, with the first windward mark to starboard. This, according to race officer Ray Griffin, “adds a bit of spice.” A reach follows, then a run, another reach and the final beat to the finish. Racing is continuous, at three-minute intervals. The time is displayed on large digital clocks (which are hired from the London Marathon) on the committee boat.



With 32 teams, and six minute races, the decision of who races who is complex, but fortunately this is left to the computers. The first round on Saturday morning is held based on the first draw after teams have registered on the Friday night. From then on it’s down to the computer and the ‘Swiss League’ to pair teams up.

After several races, it would be expected that a number of teams would have the same number of wins as each other. Griffin explains what the computer gets up to: “The tiebreaker measures your performance based on who you have sailed. If you beat the leading team then you get more brownie points than the second placed team. The computer takes the leading team and then matches it with the next team on the way down.”

This way the racing is continuously ‘seeded’ so the top teams may never meet the lower ranked teams. To keep the variety a rule is put into the system which says that two teams cannot race each other again for eight rounds.

“This means that the top teams are always sailing the top teams,” explains Griffin, “And so everyone is sailing their peers in terms of ability. This provides much better quality of racing to watch and much better quality of racing for the competitors.”

If you’re still with us, now it gets simpler. Racing runs on Saturday from 8am through to 5.30pm, then again on Sunday until about 1pm when the final stages are fought out.

The top eight teams go into a best of three quarter final, then four go through to the best of three semi finals and then the Wilson Trophy is fought over by the top two teams in a five race final.



With such close racing and the rules being a key weapon for competitors, all races have on the water umpires. This was brought in by West Kirby in the eighties, the first time ever for a team racing event. The system has been refined over the years and now two umpires follow each race, with several more posted at strategic points on the race course. The eighties also saw the introduction of colour coded boats – with hulls and sails the same for each team – which not only helped the umpires and competitors, but also the spectators.

This slick and well practised race management has also resulted in many more races being sailed by the quarter final deadline. Griffin says that in the last couple of years they have taken the hard line on competitors being ready to race when their next slot is ready. “Up to a couple of years ago we used to muster them, and if a team wasn’t ready everything stopped. In the last couple of years we have just said ‘If you don’t turn up then tough.’ The sailors can’t believe how much extra racing they have had in the last couple of years since we’ve introduced the continuous starting.” In 2001 each team had a minimum of nine races, this rose to fifteen races in 2002.

The event has for a long time attracted international competition. This year is no exception with one Czech team, one Dutch, two Irish and four American. “A couple of years ago, we actually attracted 13 applicants from the States,” says Griffin. “We had realised that if we were not careful there would be more foreign teams in the Wilson Trophy than UK, which wouldn’t do UK team racing any good. So we now restrict the foreign entry to 25% of the total.

“Six American teams applied this year and we had to turn down two, which is a hell of a shame. My mind boggles that six people are prepared to fly over from the States for two days sailing!”

So who is looking in good shape for this years event? The New Forest Pirates return as defending champions from 2003 and 2002, the last team to win three in a row was West Kirby themselves in the early nineties. In The New Forest Pirates team this year are Stuart Hudson and Linda Eadie, Dom Johnson and Debs Kershaw, and Owen Modral and Jane Stamp. Although West Kirby have featured in the finals six times in the last ten years, they have only come out victors on a single occasion.

Spinnaker Club have historically had a very strong group of team racing sailors, and last won the trophy in 2000. Two of their sailors won Silver at the Team Racing Worlds this year. Friends of Alice Lisle are current European Champions.

From overseas the biggest threat comes from WHishbone, World Champions from 2003 and runner up at the Wilson in the same year. US Olympic 49er sailor Tim Wadlow is one of their helms. Andy Green, GBR Challenge America’s Cup helm, is sailing with the questionably named Imperial Poona Yacht Club team.

Saturday night is the major social event of the weekend, with a smart dinner in the ‘Summer Pavillion’ at the sailing club. The corrugated iron boat shed is transformed on the inside into a sumptuous dinning hall. For competitors and spectators, this year sees the return of American Ken Legler who will be commentating on the racing over the public address system.

A significant feature for this year is the involvement of a commercial sponsor. A Local ‘smart’ car dealership has generously stepped up to the plate and it is hoped that this will be the start of renewed and continued investment into the event.

Weather conditions look set to be on the light side, although Griffin remains positive, with the Wilson having never lost out due to natural causes.

The club has an excellent website, where proceedings can be followed over the weekend. If you check out the archive pages, you will find the following explanation:

In October 1953 it was decided to rename the meeting to the 'Wilson Trophy' in honour, not of a Prime Minister, but somebody much more important. Billy Wilson, much loved locally, one time commodore of W.K.S.C. and a great character.