The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron representative team of Zac West (helm), Annabelle Connery (main), Lauren Tandy (tactics), Jameson Prescott (trim), and Massimo Henderson (bow) competed at the Sailing Champions League Youth Final in Kiel Germany from the 1st to 3rd of September.

The youth finals brought together the best under-23 youth sailors from around Europe and Australia to compete in a format of short-course fleet racing to decide which club has the best youth sailors in the world. We sailed in international J/70 boats with each race lasting around 10-12 minutes.

The racing was fun, fast and action packed!

We were excited to put our hard work over the last three months and our learnings from the UK J/70 nationals the week before into practice and race against some of the best youth sailors in the world. The weekend had light and variable winds with large wind shifts which made boat speed and race strategy critical.

The first day of racing had a steady six to ten knots with large cloud driven shifts. This meant it was crucial to keep our eyes out of the boat to make sure we did not get stuck on the wrong side of the course. After a mid-fleet finish in the first race, we found our speed and posted a series of firsts and seconds to finish the day in 2nd overall.

The second day had lighter winds ranging from two to eight knots of breeze with significant wind shifts. At times, the wind would shift up to 90 degrees meaning there were big losses if you were on the wrong side of the shift. These shifts made the starts and finding clear lanes crucial. Unfortunately, we found ourselves on the wrong side of the course a few times and posted some high scores which meant we had slipped out of the top four.

The final day had slightly more breeze with a range of six to fourteen knots with the breeze steadily increasing as the day went on. There were the same big shifts as we saw on the first two days. We struggled to hold clean lanes off the start line in the first few races putting us just out of reach of the final series (top four boats). We finished up 5th overall. Regardless of the results, we are immensely proud of our effort.

Main trimmer Annabelle commented, “The conditions were very light and shifty all weekend. In some races we didn’t come off the start line with clean air, which meant we struggled to find passing lanes. However, our racing has improved enormously over the weekend, and we are proud of our result. We look forward to returning to Sydney and passing on what we have learnt from overseas to other SKP and RSYS members.”

We would like to give a huge thanks to our support team of parents who helped get us to and from the regattas and RSYS for their continued support.