Name: Lucy Goff
Year: 3
Subject: History
Commodore of the Sailing Club and part of the team that has just come second in the regional qualifiers of the BUCS team racing sailing event.
How do you feel about being a campus celebrity?
It’s great to get some more recognition for the sailing club as a whole, hopefully people will read this and understand a bit more about the society and what it has to offer people of all abilities! As for me, it’s nice for hard work to be recognised myself, and the rest of the committee have worked extremely hard this year and have already achieved some great BUCS results.
What exactly does your position of ‘commodore’ entail?
It’s a role very similar to most AU club captains. It involves the overseeing of your committee (luckily I have a great team this year so it’s been pretty easy), liaising with the AU and in my case working on a number of sponsorship deals. We have been really lucky this year to be sponsored by Sperry Topsider, an American boat shoes company wanting to expand their extremely popular designs to the UK market. As a result you will be seeing a number of the sailing club modeling Sperrys around campus and at events, definitely one of the perks of the job!
What’s the best thing about Exeter?
Its pretty cheesy to say the sailing club, so I won’t but I do think sport at Exeter has greatly contributed to my university experience. Other than that, the city itself is so nice – good shopping, nice places to run and cycle (should probably do more of this) and great places to go and eat. I’ll be sad to leave it.
Balancing sailing with your social life must be pretty tricky, how do you manage?
It is difficult but you prioritise the things you enjoy, unfortunately it does mean missing out on things with the housemates or going out in the weeks that we are away at events at the weekend. But its worth it when you have a good weekend sailing and everything clicks, hopefully this will be the case for finals in April too!
What would be your advice to those wanting to get involved in sailing?
GET INVOLVED!!! There are loads of way to do this, we are always looking for additional players for our intermural netball team or come to our ISM event in early march!! I would say just give it a go, most of us are qualified instructors and race coaches so you are in good hands.
Which is the better night out: Timepiece or Arena?!
It’s got to be TP, going to one of our socials, chilling downstairs before dancing the night away with everyone, really nice especially in third year when looking forward to going out keeps you going in the library.
Congratulations on your recent success, what’s next for you and the sailing club in the coming months?
Thank you! We are extremely busy for the next couple of months organizing both an event for ISM to promote watersports to a wider student base and our ‘Exeter Excalibur.’ The most important event on many universities team racing calendars – proving that we can host an event better than anyone else! Aside from this our team racing and yachting teams are working hard with Beef in the gym for their finals in April when we hope to add to our BUCS points and medal collection.