Marlow Ropes Award to hopeful Peter McCoy + Video

by Matt Carter on 25 Sep 2013 Chichester Olympic sailing hopeful Peter McCoy is set to receive free rope for a year after being awarded the Marlow Ropes Award for his recent success in the Finn class.

The Marlow Ropes Award was introduced in 2002 with the aim of rewarding Britain’s most promising young sailors for their determination, focus and talent.

The Finn sailor is a current member of the British Sailing Team’s Podium Potential Squad giving him access to an array of world class training resources used by Britain’s medal winning sailors – a real stepping stone to succeeding at the highest level.

'It feels great to win the Marlow Ropes Award. It’s been a really busy season this year for me with some good results at the Junior Europeans and Junior Worlds so to round it off with such a prestigious award is a great feeling,' said the 21-year-old McCoy.



'The highlight of the year was definitely winning the Junior European title in Warnemunde, Germany, which may be one of the reasons for me being chosen to win the award. I also finished just outside the medals in fourth at the Junior Worlds which was disappointing, but the level of the junior fleet is constantly increasing and it’s just great to be up amongst it at the top of the fleet competing for the podium.'

The Marlow award entitles the current Finn Junior European Champion to free Marlow rope for a year, which McCoy says will be invaluable as he progresses through his campaign and hopefully into full-time sailing next year after finishing his studies in Marine Sports Science at Plymouth University.

'It’s fantastic to have a sponsor on-board like Marlow who are able to give out awards like these as top quality rope is instrumental throughout any campaign. It’s always such close racing in the Finn class so every little advantage you can get in the boat is a real help and with Marlow being the best quality rope you can get it’s going to be a great help in trying to make the boat go faster.

'There are quite a lot of controls on the Finn even though it has only got the one sail. It’s got an inhaul, outhaul and downhaul which all help control the shape of the sail and obviously one of the most important things is to the have the right rope so you can control the sail effectively and go as fast as you can.'

Barrie Edgington, British Sailing Team Podium Potential Manager, commented: 'Since being plucked from the Laser 18 months ago, Peter has made great progress in Finn culminating in his Junior title this year. Both the body and the boat have to be optimised to succeed in this technical and physically demanding boat, and having the support of Marlow will be a great boost to optimising his boat and performance.'

Paul Honess, Leisure Marine Sales Director, said: 'We introduced the Marlow Ropes Award around the time of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and it was designed to try and help the up and coming sailors of the British Sailing Team progress into the Podium Squad and give them all of the equipment they need in order to progress their career.

'The Award this time around will benefit Peter because he will be able to play around with different types of ropes in order to try and establish which one is best for the mainsheet, which one is best for the control lines and for whatever suits his style of sailing he can try different types of rope for what suits him better.

'In all the years that we have run the Marlow Ropes Award we have always received feedback from the sailors and worked with them extensively on new products for each Olympic cycle. We find that working with the team is vital as the feedback we receive is influential in developing and improving our products at British Sailing Team