SUSA is back! (SSS 2)

The Scottish Student Sailing League 2 event began on the night of the 29th of February in the underground, a beloved hangout of the Dundee sailors, where sambuca is cheap and anticipation ran high for what was predicted to be an intense and extremely windy weekend. At about 9pm the words that have plagued SSS events even since Peter’s day were uttered on facebook with Emily Robertson declaring sailing on the Saturday “CANNED” - due to heavy wind with gusts of around 50 knots throughout the day, the beloved Storm Gertrude. What ensued was an impressive night in Liquid, with a certain Glasgow sailor being unable to gain entry due to his encounter with the ground outside his host’s flat, a suspicious amount of glitter having spread itself around the Glasgow teams, and a few SUSA goers finding themselves desperately lost in the snow in Dundee.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early, most of the sailors found themselves back in their host flats, and remembered with relief that they did not have to go sailing that day. The Tay was as windy as anticipated, and we set out to organize the boats, put up masts, locate sails (involving a ‘quick trip’ to Aberdeen), and fix boats in order to start the racing as efficiently as possible the next day. The rest of Saturday was spent doing non-sailing related activities, including ice skating, swimming and Lord of the Rings marathons.

Later that night, we found ourselves decked out in glitter and face paint as various board games (or ‘bored game’ in the case of Glasgow Yellow) making our way to the legendary Dundee Union, and dancing off all our excess energy from a day devoid of mark traps and smack downs. The shout of ‘parkour!’ was heard in the ladies’ bathroom, and the freshers’ rep exhibited her talents for climbing more successfully than on previous occasions, and Emily is rumoured to have pulled a frostbit. A lucky few made it to the 24 hour bakery, a necessary detour after the day’s enthusiasm.

Pheasants, scrabble, and cluedo in unforeseen circumstances.

On Sunday morning the League began with a 10 knot wind and a 5 knot tide flowing in the opposite direction, posing problems in terms of the start line and mark traps (for some even rounding the 1st mark turned into a nearly insurmountable challenge). Glasgow Yellow put in an impressive performance when Emily mark trapped the whole of Edinburgh Blue, and made it to the top of Supergold. Notably, the SSS team got a 456 in a race between Glasgow and Strathclyde, big things in store for these guys.

Glasgow Blue sailed their way swiftly into the top of Gold fleet and won their playoff into Supergold, with the help of a bit of Greek lightning and generally fantastic sailing by Team Ross, putting them in a very strong position for SSS 3, and opening up the possibility to go straight to BUSA finals.

Glasgow Pink won four of their races in Silver fleet, and was winning their playoff against Aberdeen White with a 126 that became a 123 after Duncan, having been given spins by the Umpire, completely ‘Hooled it’ when he managed to mark trap the rest of his team mates into a 456 in a dastardly show of support for Glasgow.

Glasgow Beige, after recovering from the shock of seeing fake Christos (Fistos) on Dream Team, and a surprise visit from one of the key members of ‘old beige’ the night before, sailed well in the Silver League, only placing below Strathclyde Tartan and Aberdeen White.

At the end of the league, Glasgow had won Supergold (Glasgow Yellow), Gold (Glasgow Blue), and Silver (Glasgow Pink), and subsequently quite a lot of beer, the combination of which made for a very happy trip back to Glasgow and five days to prepare for the final onslaught: SSS 3.

The Results at the end of SSS 2:

SUPER GOLD

Glasgow Yellow

Edinburgh Blue

Strathclyde Blue

Edinburgh White

Glasgow Blue

GOLD

Edinburgh Green

Strathclyde Red

St Andrews Pink

St Andrews Yellow