Teams set to battle for Eric Twiname Championship

by RYA on 15 Oct 2016 Oxford Sailing Club will host over 240 young sailors this weekend (15-16 October) as they take to the water to battle for the RYA Youth and Junior Eric Twiname Team Racing Championship titles.

Junior (under 16) and Youth (under 19) class associations, clubs, schools and individual teams will compete in the two day annual event supported by the Eric Twiname Trust. As one of the highlights in the RYA’s racing calendar, the event brings the nation’s young sailors together to put their racing skills and team work to test.

2016 Olympian and former Eric Twiname Team Racing Champion, Ben Saxton will be at Oxford Sailing Club on Sunday (16 October) offering his thoughts on the racing in the commentary box as well as chatting to teams between races about his experience out in Rio.

With the 2015 Junior Champions, the Sailing Assassins, not on the water this year to defend their title, the race for the Championship title is wide open for the 17 junior teams who will sail RS Fevas.

Two Sevenoaks school teams will be tough competition having finished in the top five for the last couple of years, however Oakham and Winchester College will also be in the internal battle for top school team.

Winchester, Oakham and Sevenoaks also have teams in the Youth division as well as Magdalen College School and St Benedict’s, Winchester have come out on top in 2015 and will be wanting to defend that honour.

Racing in fireflies, last year’s Youth Champions, West Kirby Sailing Club, known for their home-grown team racing talent will be back to defend their title but with 23 other teams in the mix it will be a hard job. Challenging them are a 420 team from Royal Lymington and Crunchy Biscuits from Hayling Island Sailing Club.

Both Youth and Junior events will sail the HLS League on Saturday. On Sunday, the Junior event will split into four equal leagues with the Youth event fleet will be split into gold and silver leagues.

RYA Event Director, Olivia Risk said: “The Eric Twiname Team Racing Champs is a fantastic event for all sailors to get involved with team racing for the first time, and putting classes against classes provides that extra competitive edge.

“Not only are classes involved but so are schools and other associations with many competitors getting their first taste of team racing at this event. The skills they learn are really valuable as they can be transferred to other areas of their racing.

“It’s great that Ben Saxton is coming along on Sunday to chat to the sailors, not only is he an Olympian but also a great team racer who has won both the Eric Twiname junior and youth event.

“The event just wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Eric Twiname Trust so thank you very much for your continued support of the event and we hope to continue for many more years.”