Great Britain is celebrating a triple success after their impressive performance at the 2012 Four Star Pizza ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships in Dublin Bay, Ireland, which concluded on Friday.
The team claimed their second world title, a bronze medal and the prestigious Nations Trophy at the six day regatta.
The overall success of the RYA Volvo Team GBR saw them take home the Nations Trophy for top performing nation at the Championships, as Britain finished 13 points ahead of France who have won the award three times in the last five years. This is the fourth time that GB have taken the trophy home, last winning it in 2008.
While a sensational series from RYA Volvo Youth National champion Saskia Sills (pictured above) saw her crowned ISAF Youth Sailing World girls’ RS:X champion, as she sealed a remarkable victory on her ISAF Youth Worlds debut.
Sills led the Championships from the start, winning two races in the opening day of the competition and placing her high up on the leaderboard. During the six day series, the fifteen-year-old windsurfer became a run-away leader in the RS:X female fleet.
She commented: “My aim entering the regatta was to try and finish within the top 10 and to gain as much experience as possible as it’s my first Youth Worlds and only my third proper event on the RS:X board. I don’t think it’s hit me yet as to how big this event actually is and what it means to medal here”.
Sills, who won the U17 class RS:X European title earlier this month, finished her penultimate race on Thursday in 15th place. Had she finished in 13th, she could have secured the gold medal with a race to spare however she entered her final race with a guaranteed silver medal in the bag, again needing to finish within the top 13 to secure the world title.
She said, “At the beginning of the week I started off really well but as the week went on it got very tough (…) I was so pleased when I crossed the finished line, it was a very stressful race. At one point I was going round the top mark in 13th with the people behind right on my tail which was when I soon realised I needed to pull my finger out. When I returned to the shore it was a great feeling”.
Meanwhile, 420 World Champion Annabel Vose and her crew Kirstie Unwin started well and led the 420 fleet at the half way point of the Championship. They retained their overnight position in a tense final 420 race, in which they finished third after jostling with the boat from Chile, adding a bronze medal to the catamaran gold won by Rupert White and Tom Britz on Thursday.
Unwin commented: “It was very tense with very light winds and some big shifts. We knew we had to beat Chile or come no more than two places behind them and at the first windward mark they were in third and we were back in 15th which wasn’t a great position to be in. We fought hard to climb back up on the second beat to find ourselves one place behind the boat from Chile which meant we crossed the line winning the bronze medal”.
Vose added: “We are very happy, it feels like all our hard work has paid off. We started off the event with very little expectations and would have been happy to finish in the top 10, so to win the bronze medal is fantastic! We started off today wanting to win that bronze medal, everyone hates finishing fourth – it’s just the worst place to come! We are also very happy about winning the Nations Cup. It’s just so nice to see everyone happy including the coaches.”
Three further members of RYA Volvo Team GBR, all ISAF Youth Worlds debutants, finished in the top 10 of their respective classes. Ellie Meopham battled hard all week to just miss out on the Laser Radial podium position in the female fleet, achieving GBR’s best result since 2005.
To add to the success of the RYA Volvo Youth Racing programme, Vikki Payne and Stephanie Orton have also clinched a youth bronze medal in the female class at the 29er European Championships in Sopot, Poland.
For the full list of results from the 2012 Four Star Pizza ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships please visit the event website.
Sophia Smith, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
Image credit: ISAF
