Volvo Musto Optimist British National and Open Championships day 1

by Optimist British Nationals on 27 Jul 2010 2010 Volvo Musto Optimist British National and Open Championships got off to a near perfect start today with great sailing conditions, a record breaking turnout and even some famous faces around to provide inspiration to the hundreds of young sailors taking part.

Olympic champions Ben Ainslie, Sarah Ayton as well as RS: X World Champion Nick Dempsey are all attending Skandia Team GBR training sessions here at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and their presence certainly gave this opening day a touch of added star quality. Sarah and 470 crew Saskia Clark will be holding a talk on Wednesday night in Weymouth which promises to be an un-missable event of this action packed week.

The day began with lots of sunshine and wind speeds of around 10 knots which meant all fleets managed to begin their races on time, and complete the scheduled three races each. The forecast for the rest of the week is similarly encouraging and the 497 sailors from the 16 different countries taking part will be hoping this remains the case.

This year's Senior fleet is 164 strong, and has entrants from as far afield as Japan, Bermuda and a large contingent from the United States of America . The fleet was split into two with six races in total for this very competitive field of Optimist sailors. At the end of the first day it is defending champion Callum Airlie from Westruther in Scotland who has a four point lead at the top of the leader board. The 15 year old, who recently competed at the Optimist European Championships, said he was happy with the start he made to the competition ' It was windy out there, not my kind of windy but I still enjoyed it. I am really happy with how it went today, but there's still a long way to go.' He is followed by 14 year old Harry Gozzett in second place, with Ireland's Peter McCann in third. The top British girl after Day one is 14 year old Georgie Cage, followed by 13 year old Sarah Norbury.

Results:
1 5981 Callum AIRLIE M 15 ELYC Green 7 3 1 3
2 5827 Harry GOZZETT M 14 Dabchicks SC Turquoise 11 3 6 2
3 IRL1357 Peter MCCANN M 13 Royal Cork YC Turquoise 12 1 1 10
4 5805 Scott WALLIS M 14 Spinnaker Pink 13 6 4 3
5 FRA2142 Thibault COUR M 14 SRH Purple 15 2 2 11
6 5974 Matthew WHITFIELD M 13 Penarth YC / CBYC Turquoise 17 9 4 4
7 ESP1612 Oscar PIJOAN ORTEGA M 14 CN EL Balis Turquoise 18 2 10 6
8 JPN3122 Ibuki KOIZUMI M 14 Hikari SC Pink 19 10 2 7
9 ESP1725 Nestor CANO SOSTRE M 13 Cnvilassar DE MAR Pink 20 11 7 2
10 5999 Arran HOLMAN M 13 Hollowell Green 21

For a full list of results click here

Event website click here