SKIPPER'S CHALLENGE DAY

Saturday, 6th September 2025

 

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Photo above: Skipper's Challenge Trophy winners, Team Moon Daisy by Sally-Ann Bennett 

 

TEAM PIPPINJACK SILLY SELFIE 1

 

 

 

 

This was the second year for the Skippers Challenge Day, which is planned to be a fun and relaxed event for members to spend time on the water with friends and family. The format of the day is for teams to complete a few challenges whilst heading between the locations of Acle, Ludham, Ranworth and South Walsham.

 

 

 

 

Photo above: Team Pippinjack Silly Selfie by Paul Stevens

 

 

The briefing in the morning explained each of the challenges that the teams had to complete, which included six challenges. These were:

  • Scavenger hunt – collect 10 specific items from a list, including coffee granules, a blue fender, a white feather, and an item of crockery from another team
  • Photography challenge – take photos of 25 items or places whilst on the water, however to ensure no cheating by using old photo’s teams had to nominate an inanimate object that had to appear in every photo to confirm they have been taken on the day – the list included Acle bridge, a Herbert Woods boat, another competing team and a team selfie.
  • Observational questions – 15 questions to answer by looking out for things on the water, for example the number of yellow buoys at Thurne Mouth, the number of wooden mooring posts at St Benets, and the number of moorings available at Upton Dyke.
  • Dingbats – there were 20 food themed dingbats for the teams to decipher
  • Old Berts’s sailing rules – 10 sailing rules to be translated from Norfolk to English
  • Knots – 6 knots to tie

There were 3 teams competing, which were Team Pippinjack, Team Moon Daisy and Team Bewitched. Following the briefing, the teams planned their route to incorporate as many of the locations as possible and headed off down the river, remembering to look out for the items on the list, watch out for the observational questions and also answer the dingbats!

As this was a fun day and not a race, teams should have had time at each location to count the mooring posts and note things of interest, although the competitiveness of the teams meant they tried to do as many of the locations as possible within the time! Teams had to return by 4:30pm to submit their answers and present their scavenger items before the results were announced.

All the teams returned in time and the answers were collated, and then following revealing the answers to the questions (which included a challenge over one of the rules of sailing!) the winners were revealed. Incredibly just 3 points separated the 3 teams, with Team Moon Daisy taking the honours of the winning team.

Many thanks to everyone that participated in the event, all the teams had a fun day so we will look to repeat this again in 2026 with a few new challenges for the teams.

Jamie Martin-Bennett

Skipper

 

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Photo above:Teams Bewitched, Moon Daisy and Pippinjack by Sally Ann Bennett                     Photo above: Runners Up - Pippinjack by Sally Ann Bennett                     

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Photos above: Cocktail umberella, Moon Daisy - Digger, Bewitched - Screwdriver, Pippinjack