Vanuatu sailor set for ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships

by Daniel Smith on 7 Nov 2015 Growing up can be tough on a teenager, especially when trying to make their way in to elite sports. When most of us grow up we struggle to think of what we will do in the future, which direction we will head in.

One young sailor from the Pacific Island of Vanuatu is already looking ahead to a future in sailing beyond competition thanks to the ISAF Youth Worlds Emerging Nations Program (ENP).

Born in England before moving to South Africa, 16 year old Sydney Pettitt will head to Langkawi, Malaysia to represent the island of Vanuatu, where she now lives, at the ISAF Youth World Championships this coming December following a successful ENP clinic in Suva, Fiji.

Sydney’s sailing journey didn’t start too well, and it could have even broken some trying the sport, as she explains, “Well, this might sound a bit weird, but when I was younger my dad forced me to sail. He had a friend who offered to teach me and I wasn’t really interested.”

Despite being persuaded, Sydney nearly gave up before she had even started, “I didn’t like it too much because he put me in the wrong conditions, like really windy and I was just a novice.”

Thankfully her perseverance paid off and she became an example of how you progress in a sport, no matter how tough the start, “I got into competitions, started doing well, improved, developed my skills and I ended up loving it and I’ve pretty much done it since I was six years old.”

“It just makes me calm, so when I need a break I’ll just pop on the water and chill out.”

Sailing now for ten years, Sydney will head to the ISAF Youth Worlds with that love of competition and calm to go with the skills that she learned while on the ENP clinic. The clinics are designed to target nations which may not have a strong sailing history or the level of resources as others, as Sydney explains, “In Vanuatu you have very limited resources and not as many sailors, whereas in say England or South Africa for example you have a lot of fleets and everything, and maybe three or four coaches.”

Sydney believes the ENP clinic has benefitted her, and will benefit others also, “I’d say the clinics are important because people can take what they learn back to their home and hopefully develop sailing more and then we can get bigger fleets, more coaches involved and hold more regattas.”

For most sailors in the Olympic classes, there is one goal, an Olympic gold medal. For the down-to-earth Sydney though, it is a little bit different. So what would she say was her real sailing goal, “Well, most people would say the Olympics, but I just really want to develop the sport in my country, so make it more fun for me. That’s pretty much my big goal. But I just want everyone to feel the way I feel about sailing and come together and have that connection and build a new sailing family, because that’s what also helped motivate me.”

For this young Pacific Islander, she has experienced the good, the bad and the indifferent already in sailing even at a young age. In a sport for life, Sydney will have many highs and lows within sailing, whether it be at the ENP clinics, the Youth Worlds or even coaching after her competitive career is done, but she still has a long road ahead to catch up with her idol, “There was this old lady at my old yacht club in South Africa and man, she was like 76 and man, she was amazing, still holding it up in the strong winds, capsizing, didn’t break a single bone and that really inspired me to hopefully continue sailing throughout my life until I’m at that age.”