As the 2007 RYA Youth National Championships and Trials drew to a close on Saturday (14 April), selectors for the 2007 RYA Team GBR Youth Worlds Team unveiled the ten sailors who will compete at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships in Kingston, Canada, this July.
Three of the selected sailors are Youth Worlds veterans , competing at the top multi-class youth event for their second consecutive year.
Hobie 16 helmsman Richard Glover (Weymouth) will head to Canada with fond memories of his 2006 Youth Worlds experience he won gold crewing for Tom Phipps when his home town played host to the same event last year, so will be in the hunt for honours once more, this time with his 14-year-old brother Andrew.
RS:X windsurfer Richard Hamilton (Barrow upon Humber) finished just outside of the medals in fifth place last year, so will be in search of a podium position at the Canadian event, which runs from 12-21 July.
For the 2007 Youth Worlds, competitors will see a change in the equipment used for the double-handed class, which switches from the 420 to the 29er this year. Sophie Weguelin (Lymington) competed in the 420 class at the Weymouth event last year, where she finished 12th overall, but has since made a successful switch to the 29er class. Six months after making the move to the new boat, Weguelin and crew Sophie Ainsworth (Ashford) were crowned Under 19 and Women s World Champions at the 29er Worlds held in January this year.
James Ellis (Plymouth) and Rob Partridge (Weaverham) will be the British representatives in the 29er boys event.
On the back of winning their Youth Nationals titles this weekend, Stuart Godwin (London) and Chloe Martin (Tonbridge) have been selected to compete in the single-handed events for boys and girls, the Laser Standard and Laser Radial classes, while Kirsten O Callaghan (Hampton) completes the line-up as the chosen sailor in the RS:X girl s windsurfing event for the RYA Team GBR Youth Worlds Team, supported by Musto.
The standard of youth sailing throughout this week has certainly been very good," said Chairman of Selectors, Zeb Elliott. "We did find the conditions at Hayling this week very one-dimensional, though, and as a result we felt we also had to look at how sailors would perform internationally across a wider band of conditions.