South Zone update January 2018

Latest report from Duncan West, RYA South and South West High Performance Manager.

Youth Sailing World Championships 2017 Sanya, China    
The South Region had four sailors part of the British Youth Sailing Team at the World Sailing Youth Worlds, with 5 of the 14 British sailors from the region. Alex Smallwood and Ross Thompson (Beaconsfield/Godalming) in the 420 and Nick Robins and Billy Vennis-Ozanne (Winchester/Hill Head) in the 29er.  Final results and write up.
 
Entries for this year’s Youth National Championships hosted at Largs YC are now open which will form the primary selection event for 2018’s Youth Worlds. Enter here.   

RYA South Squads   

The 2017 -18 winter zone squads are all selected, with 17 sailors in the Topper Squad, 36 Optimist sailors (the largest this squad has ever been), 7 boats in the RS Feva squad and 17 windsurfers. 

The winter training started with the Squad Land Days at WPNSA in November for sailors and parents. So far this winter the weather has been mixed with no wind and ice to heavy rain and gales. Hopefully with no training in January and extending the winter training in to May will see better weather for the rest of training. I am pleased to report that of the 24 coaches employed within the whole region 11 are female, which should help to support our work of increasing girls with in the pathway. We are working jointly with the Topper Class to employ Lynn Billows to lead the All Girls class coaching within the region, and also nationally. 

In December we ran Physical Profiling in Portland, for youth sailors which is one of the three consideration for selection to the British Sailing Team; Sailing Performance, Profiling and Values & Behaviours. The next Youth Physical Profiling will be held before the Youth Nationals in Largs.   

Club Workshops   

Earlier this month I visited Milton Keynes SC to deliver a workshop on the RYA Youth Racing Pathway. Members of MKSC were joined by Haversham SC, Emberton Park SC and Great Moor SC.  If your club would like to host a workshop and learn more about the pathway and how best to support young sailors looking to apply for RYA squads please do drop me a line.   

Team15   

2018 will see an increase in support and time to help the regions clubs to raise numbers of sailors and hopefully see more entry’s at the regions Interclubs. We are running CPD for all Team 15 clubs at Burghfield SC on March 17th. 

The Team15 interclubs have been confirmed for 2018   

South 1 - 19 May, Oxford SC 
South 2 -  23 June Oxford SC   
South 3 - 21 July Portsmouth Watersports   
South 4  - 19 August TBC   

Racing Coach Development   

RCL2 courses are programmed in March, hosted by Milton Keynes SC. There is also a Keelboat course planned at Cowes Corinthian YC next month. Any club wishing to host a course needs to programme it as soon as possible as there is a 3 mouth setup time so we are look at course in the autumn. Please direct all enquires to myself duncan.west@rya.org.uk 

Information on the RCL2 course can be found here.   The RCL3 course will be running again in 2018, aimed at experienced club coaches looking to reflect and develop thehere.ir coaching. Any coach looking to gain more information about the course can find it here.   

KEY DATES for 2018 

1st – 6th April 2018: RYA Youth National Championships, Largs, Scotland.  

5th – 7th May 2018: RYA Eric Twiname Zone and Home Country Championships, Rutland Water SC.  

15th – 16th September 2018: National Windsurfing Championships, Rutland Water SC. 

29th – 30th September 2018: RYA Zone Championships, WPNSA 

20th – 21st October 2018: RYA Youth Team Racing Championships, Oxford SC  


For more information on all of the above contact Duncan West.