Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Sail away with me...
06 November 2020
I started sailing with my Dad when I was 5 years old as I was too young at the time to sail on my own. As soon as I was 8 I joined K2O club at Bartley Sailing Club and was trained to sail every Saturday morning by the Instructors there. I achieved my RYA level 1,2,3 and 4 taking me from novice to racing boats with spinnakers. I started racing in competitions when I was 9 in the RS Tera class and had some great results in the Regatta Fleet before moving to the main fleet. Because I grew quite quickly I needed to move to a bigger boat so I moved into the international Topper class of boat. This is one of the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) junior pathway classes which means that they select sailors to coach each year in the junior squads. These sailors then progress to the youth squads and then the pathway takes them to possible Olympic selection. Each year there are 3 selection events; a race meeting at a local club, the Regional Junior Championships which is a weekend of 6 races, and a training event so the coaches can see if you respond well to being taught new skills. If you pass all of these selection events then you are invited to the squad and get squad team clothing to show you are in the team. Over winter you attend 6 training weekends where you are taught fitness, boat handling and tactics, race strategy, and get to make new friends. At the end of the training the different regional squads compete at the Eric Twinname championships to see which region has the best sailors. Last year when I was in the squad this was cancelled so we had to do an on-line version using Virtual Regatta which was quite fun. After learning so much last year I was really pleased to be selected for the squad again in 2020 and I am looking forward to the training weekends to improve my race starts and speed in the boat as well as making new friends.
- Millie Year 8
