Pupils retain national sailing title for school

A squad of HSD sailors are celebrating after retaining a national title for the School.

The School successfully defended the Brown Cup

Last year, for the first time in almost 50 years, the High School won the Brown Cup - the Scottish Schools Sailing Championships. Last week at Loch Earn, the team of Tom Mitchell (F3) and brothers James (F3) and Rory Gifford (F1) successfully defended the School’s title and were crowned the winners once again!

The trio had to have their sailing wits about them in order to overcome an absence of any meaningful breeze on the Loch, during what was the 60th staging of the event. But they were up to the challenge, impressively reading wind shifts and finding the areas which would produce the ultimate boat speed on flat water, to finish well ahead of the 13 other school teams.

And there was success at an individual level too, with Tom winning the Topper Class, James winning the Optimist Class with Rory close behind in second! Also sailing under the High School banner were Suzie Sturrock (F2) and Ross Mauritzen (F4), who competed together in a 29er within the handicap class.