Top Youth Sailors take on Round the Island Challenge

by Sarah Alexander on 30 Jun 2011 On Saturday 25th June some of the country’s top youth sailors teamed up with 2012 Olympic hopefuls to compete in the annual 50 mile sprint around the Isle of Wight, namely the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

The sailors joined over 16,000 people including popular TV personality Denise Van Outen and actor Chris Parker to take part in the historic race.

The race was a welcome break for the young sailors who since winning the RYA Volvo Youth Nationals Championships in April have been busy sitting their A and AS level exams and training for the upcoming ISAF Youth Sailing Worlds Championships 2011, Croatia seventh – 16th July.

RYA Volvo Team GBR 29er sailors Sam Batten and Henry Lloyd Williams both 17 from Lymington, were in safe hands with top 470 sailor Hannah Mills and RYA High Performance Manager, Chris Blackburn on-board Team Volvo Six.

'We got up very early, abit too early for my liking! We headed out and it was very very windy, pretty scary out there even for me as I haven’t really sailed yachts or keelboats before. There were a lot of boats around- it was pretty much carnage at the start! But it was awesome, great fun out there! We got a bit of a battle in with the other Team Volvo boats which was fun!' Said 470 Helm Hannah.

The day was wet and gloomy with difficult sailing conditions for the competitors. The wind was a consistent 25 knots, with gusts of 30 knots around the iconic Needles landmark. The big waves and choppy seas forced an early retirement for the young sailors as they made the prudent decision to turn back before they headed to the south of the island.

'Apparently there were boats pitch poling so we thought it would be a better option not to go all the way round the Island. It was great sailing back to Cowes though -we had the kite up and got up to about 16 knots which was really fun!' continued Sam.

Sisters Lucy and Kate Macgregor, two thirds of top international Women’s Match Race team and current World Champions skippered Team Volvo five and Team Volvo four. Youth sailor Cameron Douglas, 17 from Wirrel and Rheanna Pavey, 16 from Suffolk swapped their single handed Laser Radials to join Kate and Lucy. Duncan Truswell, RYA Youth Racing Manager and Roy McCubbin, RYA Double Handed Pathway Manager added sailing support to the two teams.

Despite not finishing the race the team returned smiling and enjoyed their experience on the water 'We have had a great morning but unfortunately the conditions out there were just too tough; there were 100s of boats and several collisions on the start line. We turned back at Hurst Castle but we had an awesome sail up until then' said Team Volvo for life sailor Kate.

Pre-race on the Friday the youth sailors took to the waters of the Solent in J109s joining Denise Van Outen, Olympic bronze medallist and 2009 World Champion RS:X Windsurfer, Nick Dempsey and Paralympic sailor, Helena Lucas for an afternoon of training and match racing.

'The Volvo teams worked really well together and it was great sailing with a different team. Although it was pretty grim out there we had fun and enjoyed the experience. We had Rheanna [Pavey] on board who helmed from Yarmouth and she was great, all the youth sailors did a really awesome job and they are great hopefuls for us in a couple of weeks’ time at the ISAF Youth Worlds' finished Lucy.