Six African nations head to 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing Worlds + Video

by ISAF on 20 Nov 2015 Six African nations are heading to the 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship in Langkawi, Malaysia thanks to the support of the Emerging Nations Program.

Sailors from Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania participated in the African ENP clinic in Maputo, Mozambique earlier on in the year and will now make the trip to Langkawi to fly their nation's flag. They will be amongst the 42 sailors who have been awarded a Youth Worlds ENP scholarship that will give them the funding and support they need for travelling and entering the event.

The 2015 Emerging Nations Program has enabled the upcoming Youth Worlds to be a record breaking year with 80 nations confirmed to sail. This surpasses the previous record of 67 with new and returning nations heading to the event.

Sailors were put through their paces by ISAF Nominated Experts at the ENP clinics, looking at techniques, rules tips as well as training sessions both on and off the water.

What they said

Nominated expert, Rob Holden, 'Promoting sailing in Africa to me is huge. I believe the sport offers a lot to kids in a development way. We've got very rich people in Africa and very, very poor people in Africa and sailing can be a way where the rich people start paying for the poor people to develop and I think it can also open horizons for the poor and the young kids to get out of Africa and see new horizons.

'I see a lot of African kids, their world is about three blocks big: to school, to the shop and back home and sailing can open that up to the world really and that's the sort of dream I have for African children.'

Nominated expert, Eduardo Sylvestre, 'I gave a talk about sports psychology, how you have to overcome failure, how can you throw out something you did bad, wash it and say goodbye to that mistake and go again.

'We had one situation where the Angolan girl was doing awesome. She was eighth out of 30 boats in the first race and then all of a sudden, she made one mistake and had to pay a penalty. She was devastated; she was at the back and finished almost last. She cried like crazy and that day her coach was sick, so I was her coach for the day.

'So I came up to her and I said, 'Listen, why are you crying? Just say goodbye to that mistake.' So she started to say goodbye to her mistake and wiped her face. I said, 'Now what you have to do, you have to turn it over. See that, focus, see we have another race, we have to do this.'

'In the next race she was about tenth, the following day she was first and then she was second. That's what this is about. It's turning over, learning from mistakes and she came to me and said, 'Thank you that was awesome. It was great because I can put everything out and just focus on the next day.'

Akil Nouha, Algerian Laser Radial sailor, 'We've learned quite a lot of things with our ISAF coaches, Rob, Antonio and Eduardo. They've taught us how to create sailing strategies; they've taught us the psychological aspect. If ISAF organise similar training courses often and if we do similar training with ISAF more often, we can improve and make progress.'

ISAF Youth Worlds

Langkawi, Malaysia is hosting the 45th edition of the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships from 27 December to 3 January 2016. More than 380 sailors from 80 sailing in more than 300 boats across nine disciplines will compete in Malaysia.