London Boat Show - RYA announces Henri Lloyd partnership

by Ellie Williamson/RYA on 9 Jan 2011 Tullett Prebon London Boat Show - The RYA has revealed an exciting new venture which is a brand new partnership between its Junior and Youth Racing Programmes and Henri Lloyd.

The partnership will see Henri Lloyd exclusively supply clothing to the prestigious RYA Junior and Youth squads as well as RYA supported International Teams attending major International regattas all over the World.

The RYA Junior and Youth programmes continue to grow from strength to strength enjoying medal winning success at international level, demonstrating significant strength and depth across the classes having posted more top ten World championship results this year. The programmes also continue to feed Skandia Team GBR’s Squads in the Olympic Classes with highly talented and motivated young sailing stars of the future.

Henri Lloyd’s involvement in the programmes promises to help continue that success by supplying clothing to the RYA Junior and Youth Racing Programmes culminating in ensuring RYA Volvo Team GBR, the British Sailing Team for the 41st ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship in Croatia 2011, is supplied with the very best technical and shore-side gear to enable them to fulfil their potential.

Henri Lloyd also intend to exclusively supply the RYA World Class Junior and RYA Volvo Youth Sailing programmes with squad clothing for all the sailors from the RYA Zone (super-regional) and Home Country Squads right through to international teams at senior youth level.

RYA Youth Racing Manager Duncan Truswell comments: 'We are delighted to start what we hope will be a long and strengthening relationship with Henri Lloyd. They were closely associated with the RYA Youth Squads in the mid-late 90's and I have very fond memories of wearing my Henri-Lloyd Laser National Youth Squad jacket with pride.'

He continued: 'I hope that the Youth sailors of today will feel the same about wearing Henri Lloyd gear when they are representing RYA Team GBR either domestically or abroad, they [Henri Lloyd] have a great product range for an array of Technical functions which we hope will enable our sailors to be more comfortable afloat and ashore, and thereby enable them to perform better.'

Paul Strzelecki, Henri Lloyd’s joint Managing Director, joined Truswell and RYA Racing Manager John Derbyshire during a press reception on Henri Lloyd’s stand where he spoke of the organisation’s delight in forming the new relationship.

He commented: 'We are pleased to once again support the RYA Youth and Junior Programme. We hope that the emerging UK sailing talent can benefit from our innovative performance clothing.

'We are extremely proud to add this sponsorship to our existing support for the very successful RYA OnBoard programme which we have done since its inception. We look forward to a long and fruitful association.'

Stand-out performances in 2010 included six top ten finishes from RYA Volvo Team GBR at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship securing the accolade of second nation overall for the second year running.

As well as this youth and junior squad sailors picked up a total of 38 World and European medals across the range of classes supported by RYA Youth Programmes including: the inaugural IOC Youth Olympic Games and World Championship medals in the RS:X Youth, RS Feva, Cadet, BIC Techno and Laser Radial classes proving how effective the programme is at preparing Great Britain’s next generation of sailing stars for podium success.

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