Dylan Fletcher Inspires Sailors at Northampton Sailing Club
by Clare Butterfield 29 Apr 21:21 NZST
Dylan Fletcher and NSC Commodore Sarah Carswell © Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team
Dylan Fletcher MBE inspired sailors of all ages when he returned to Northampton Sailing Club to share his sailing experiences. Dylan, who learnt to sail at the club at the age of 11, has since become Olympic champion, co-helmed alongside Sir Ben Ainslie in Britain's America's Cup team and is now Driver for Sir Ben's Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team.
Despite not having a sailing background, as his parents were professional ballet dancers, Dylan received invaluable advice and support from the experienced sailors at Northampton, notably Chris Wright and Richard Willows. He kept his head down, worked on his sailing skills, and with further encouragement from Chris, went on to sail a Hobie 405. His persistence and success at the Nationals led him to being spotted as a potential Olympic sailor.
"Follow your dreams"
Dylan's advice to younger sailors aspiring to compete in the Olympics was: "Keep doing what you're doing. Have fun, keep your head down and work hard. Follow your dreams - hard work and enjoyment are the key." He spoke of his relief at winning gold in Tokyo 2020. The Olympics had been postponed until 2021 due to the Covid pandemic and so much hard work and preparation had gone into the Olympic campaign, the overwhelming feeling was relief when Dylan and Stuart Bithell won Gold in the 49er class.
America's Cup
He described one of the highlights of his career to date as co-helming the AC75 alongside Ben Ainslie in Britain's America's Cup campaign. He said: "Getting to the final was a dream come true, but next time we want to take one step further and win. We worked really hard and the support for the team was unbelievable. I'm also really proud of the culture that we created around the team, but we were very disappointed not to beat the Kiwis."
SailGP
Dylan is now enjoying being a driver in the Emirates Great Britain SailGP team, and looks forward to racing in front of home crowds at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth in July.
He added that sailing in the Olympics is probably the best pathway to SailGP and America's Cup sailing, and that there are opportunities through the Athena Pathway and Andrew Simpson Foundation. In addition, there lots of different roles within and around the team, including the Impact programme to reduce the carbon footprint of sporting events by providing portable, renewable, off-grid power systems.
Dylan reflected on his early years at Northampton Sailing Club and when he worked making sails at P&B saying: "There are so many lessons that I learnt here - all the basic skills that make boats go faster. They still apply now."
He received an MBE in the 2022 New Year's Honours for services to sailing.