Ullswater Race Development Programme- URDP

Ullswater Race Development Programme- URDP An explanation Although I took onboard the humour over the initials URDP written in thelast Tiller Talk, I understand there may be some confusion over what is URDPall about. And in an effort to alleviate this confusion I'll try and give anexplanation of how it came about, and its aims for the coming year.Following the pattern of the Godfather trilogy, I'll begin the storyrecapping 2009, and then give you a little history of how it came about,before finally arriving at our plans for the future.

2009

In the beginning of the 09 season we sent out a questionnaire that enabledus to create a list of the areas that were of interest to the UYC sailors.Having established this, we then introduced eight Friendly Coaching Clinics.In addition we organised three coaching talks from some of the best sailorsin the world.Paul Brotherton, himself an Olympic sailor, but in the 2008 BeijingOlympics, was better known as the coach to the gold winning "3 Blonds in aBoat" Yingling crew. His talk covered upwind tactics in a very logicalfashion and in doing so introduced us to certain terminology. For thoseattentive sailors who attended the talk here is a little refresher. Are thethree terms 'Short side', 'Active', 'Against Shift', a good or bad thingwhen all combined in your upwind strategy?(I digress)Next we had Phil Evans, multi Flying 15 World Champion, who helped usunderstand how to get the best speed out of our rigs, in particularkeelboats.And finished the end of season with Paul Goodison, current Laser Olympic,World and European Champion, who kindly did two talks, one on Downwindsailing, and finished with his personal Olympic experiences which was trulyinspiring. For me his most poignant moment came at the end, when he turned to ourjuniors and said, "I always thought that those who won the Olympics or WorldChampionships were special people. I now know they aren't.

In The Beginning

URDP began just over two years ago due to long standing member of UYC, BrianMoreton. Brian's early sailing career was moulded in the 1970s sailing aTempest at Ullsy, and although for the last few years he can be seensteering his 109 at the front end of the international fleet, his main focussince his university days has been focused on business to where now he runsa very successful multi-national company in the oil industry called 'LinkOil and Gas Professionals'. Through his base in Manchester, Brian sponsoredvarious local junior sporting teams, but it was when he was approached by alocal sailing club he decided that if Link was to be involved in a sailingclub it should be UYC. So with that in mind he approached the club with asponsorship objective to give Ullswater sailors an opportunity of improvingnationally and beyond, which in turn would promote Ullswater Yacht Club.URDP was born. A small sub committee was formed, headed bythe then commodore, John Robson. Eventually after several discussions on thebest direction to begin, it was decided by Brian, John and myself, tofirstly utilise the people and skills already in the club with theintroduction of coaching clinics, and invite all Ullswater members to anopportunity to improve their racing skills in a friendly atmosphere. Aftermany 'think tanks' and 'blue sky' meetings the team of PR executives came upwith the clever and innovative title of "Friendly Coaching Clinics". At thehelm are Rear Admiral Moreton, Professor Robson, Doc Giles, Captain Noble,all ably supported by Naval Public Affairs Officer Sue Giles. The clinicsalso provided the platform for us to 'scout' the first group of UYC sailorswho would benefit from external coaches.

So what did the 2009 URDP ever do for us?

So from those who attended the clinics, the following six people have beeninvited for external coaching. Matty and James Lyons, Emily Styles, KatyStewardson, Josh Moran, and Dylan Noble. As for selecting the best coach,URDP's first choice was Paul Brotherton. However Paul (recognised as beingone of, if not 'the', best coach in the world) had several internationaloffers on the table for Olympic coaching, including the RYA's Team GBR. Thisamounted to URDP's chances of acquiring his skills lay between nil and zero.However fate played its trump card in the form of Paul's former 49er crewfor their Athens Olympic campaign, Mark Asquith. Having just finished 9th atthe 49er worlds on Lake Garda, Mark realised that if he stood a chance ofgetting the sole Olympic 49er place in the highly competitive GBR squad, heneeded to up his game, and so decided to invite Paul on board as his helm.Paul, 43, realised that this may well be his final opportunity to get anOlympic medal and immediately accepted. So with Paul going back into fulltime sailing his international coaching plans couldn't be accommodated.However at the same time, being a full time sailor isn't exactly a sensiblecareer choice if you want to become wealthy. So an opportunity arose forPaul to top-up his under-funded campaign by helping out the URDP. Therefore,with money collected for the 2009 talks and a very sizeable chunk from Brianand Link, URDP are proud to announce we have Paul Brotherton on-board.Paul's coaching will come in the form of a few on-the-water coachingsessions, but mainly through email correspondence between him and theselected six. However it is not just the six that will benefit, becausealthough only those selected will be able to ask questions, both thequestions and answers will be published on the 'soon-to-be' URDP forum onthe UYC site, so all UYC members will hopefully benefit from such adistinguished coach.

2010 and the future

For 2010 we will some more impromptu on-the-water Friendly Coaching Clinicsat the usual time, after racing on Saturday afternoon, and again someilluminating talks from sailing celebrity guest speakers, but the new planfor 2010 is the introduction of the URDP Buddy Coaching to give someone-to-one coaching. So with the help of those mentioned above who have beenselected for the Paul Brotherton coaching, joining up wth the Prof, the Doc,the Rear Admiral and the Captain, we aim to help any Ullswater boat who wantto improve their racing.And of course more to come, as the season develops.

I hope you feel suitably enlightened.

Have fun

Lester

Currently the URDP is sponsored by both "Link Oil and Gas Professionals" and³Orange Mountain Bikes", but this is not meant to be an 'exclusive club'. Ifany other sponsors would like to become involved you are very welcome, justgive us the nod.