Yachting New Zealand Youth Trials– Top sailors are on volunteer roster

by ISAF on 1 Oct 2015 Some of New Zealand's top sailors are on the volunteer roster for the up-coming 2015 Yachting New Zealand Youth Trials.

NZL Sailing Team's Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech (pictured), 2013 World Champions on the Olympic 49erFX class will be among a handful of the nation's top campaigners helping out at the youth trials event set to take place at Murrays Bay Sailing Club between 7-10 October.

Other top sailors set to help run racing at the 2015 Yachting New Zealand Youth Trials include Laser sailors Thomas Saunders, Andy Maloney and Mike Bullot, as well a handful of Aon Fast Track Squad sailors. They will join the on water race management team stationed at mark roundings and on safety craft.

David Abercrombie, YNZ Chief Executive says, 'To run any racing requires the help of volunteers, and so we decided to ask the NZL Sailing Team to help us deliver this event.

'They are the sailors that our youth campaigners aspire to emulate; they're our role models. I am delighted and really appreciate that they have stepped up to help out.'

This will be the first time since 2009 that New Zealand's team to compete at the prestigious ISAF Youth World Championships will be selected at a one off trials event.

In recent years sailors' performances at a number of designated events have been taken into account, however ISAF is bringing the international youth regatta to Langkawi, Malaysia and the southern hemisphere in December (not July or August as is more typical) and the timing has resulted in a Yachting New Zealand move to select the 2015 NZL Yachting Trust Youth Team based on a trials regatta.

The ISAF Youth World Championships feature racing for up and comers under 19 years of age and includes the Laser Radial, RS:X, 29er, 420 and SL16 classes. The regatta will gather together the world's best youth sailors and will run from 27 December 2015 through until 3 January 2016 on the Malaysian island of Langkawi.