Another club member’s success!

Angus Kemp has gained a place in the GB sailing team Laser Radial youth squad. He is one of only seven boys and five girls from all of the UK and Ireland. The squad starts formal training early in November with their first international event in Palamos Spain late December. Needless to say Angus is "Really chuffed"

For Angus it all began over 10 years ago with a tiny little six year old in his Opi of Hamworthy beach on the end of a 100m floating line. He was way too young to do Wednesday nights but the Opi Start Race coach at the time, Tim Edom, said if he did OK at the Club Regatta on the White Course he could join in. Angus went on to win the White Course and so his journey began.

After a couple of seasons in the Opi doing the class Nationals (not very well he was ill) Inlands and several national rankers he moved, following his sister, into the Topper. At nine he was the youngest sailor to make the South Zone Squad, which he did for two years, then at 11 he was the youngest ever to make the Intermediate Squad. After a season in Intermediate he advanced to the National Squad, which gave him two more seasons of high-level training. In his last year of Toppers he won every Southern Traveller event, missed out on winning the Worlds by a fraction, ask him about checking toe strap lines! Angus won his last National Series event and then waved goodbye to the Topper and tried out for the Laser National Squad in the 4.7 rig.

This summer he took part in the Greek nationals on the coast off Athens, followed a few days later by the Youth Europeans at the same venue, a couple of days later the Kemps were off to Germany from Athens, along with one of the girls, as they had both been selected for the GB team to compete at the German Europa Cup. Then home, a day or so later Angus was off to Scotland for the Nationals, straight back to Poole the day after they finished to do Parkstone Youth Week with most of his old 4.7 mates. The Impala Nationals followed a day or so later in Weymouth, then Poole Week back in the Laser, with the summer finished off by the Sonata Lift Keel Nationals, sailing with a bunch of his Laser mates, he was only at home for a hand full of days all summer.

Looking at the diary today, he only has one weekend free between now and Christmas, the rest taken up by two World/European qualifiers, squad training with the Radial Squad, open class training, the Inlands plus the Radial lads are also all starting to train this winter in the standard (full) rig so they are in a good position to transition into standard rigs over the next eighteen months to two years, probably helped by the lure of the 2020 Under 21 Worlds (raced in standard rigs in Garda next summer). Just before Christmas he is off to Palamos in Spain for their Christmas Regatta then the 2020 season starts in earnest.

For any of our Junior Sailors coming through Wednesday nights with aims and passions: train hard, spend as much time on the water as you can, perfect your skills and make sure you are as fit as possible. Try different boats when you can, get involved with our Commodores’ Challenge, you will gain huge transferable skills from that alone but most of all make sure it’s fun.

Poole YC’s Ellie Aldridge, a dinghy sailor who only began foiling a year ago, took second in the Open Europeans and lifted the European crown with stellar racing that beat off challenges from Australia's Breiana Whitehead and Russia's Valeria Garashchenko.

"It feels a bit mad," said Ellie. "The racing was so intense; so good. Everyone's improved so much. It's really tight racing. It's ridiculous to think that we have all come so far in the space of just a year. All the girls are pushing each other so much."

Aldridge was also part of the British team, paired with Connor Bainbridge, that was victorious in the inaugural Mixed Relay European Championship, when one day of the regatta was allocated to the Paris 2024 Olympics' format event. The duo just edged out the Russian pairing of Alexey Chibizov and Garashchenko.

Picture courtesy of YJA/Sally Golden

Lucy MacGregor with the coveted trophy, congratulated by MS Amlin's Keith Lovett.

The YJA MS Amlin Yachtsman of the Year and the YJA MS Amlin Young Sailor of the Year Awards were presented during a Gala Dinner at the Grand Café Southampton on September 13, following on from Press Day at the Southampton International Boat Show. The event drew together the great and the good of the marine world, distinguished guests and many previous winners of the awards.

Lucy MacGregor, four-times winner of the Women's Match Racing World Championship after her victory at the Lysekil Women's Match in August, is the YJA MS Amlin Yachtsman of the Year. '

The YJA MS Amlin Young Sailor of the Year 2019 is Matilda Nicholls, winner of the Women's Laser Radial Youth World Championship at Kingston, Canada.

The MS Amlin Seamanship Award, presented by 2018 winner Sean Rose. The trophy, previously awarded for acts of seamanship in the Round the Island Race, has been extended worldwide in 2019, this year being presented to Roy Disney, the owner of Pyewacket who rescued the team on John Sangmeister's Santa Cruz 70 OEX during July's Transpac 50 Race after they were forced to abandon ship due to water ingress from damage to their rudder post.

Next up was the YJA MS Amlin Young Blogger of the Year Award which was presented to Alex Rabbitt, who produced a fabulous short video story, filmed over a year, which is about the experience a group of youngsters went through in passing their sailing instructor course in Manchester, called 'Journey to Instructor'.

In 2018 the vote was split between two great sailors from different generations - Tracy Edwards and Nikki Henderson - the first time this has happened in the history of the event. Conrad invited Nikki to the stage to present the award to Lucy MacGregor - four-time winner of the Women's Match Racing World Championship after her victory at the Lysekil Women's Match in August. 'Team Mac' took the final 3-0 against French skipper Claire Leroy. -- Mark Jardine

Well done to all the PYC youth members that travelled to Largs in Scotland for the Topper Nationals.

Amber Hale came 1st in the Bronze fleet and Devon and Mason Green grabbed 1st and 2nd in the Regatta Fleet… Brilliant results!

Well done to Steve Bland and Steve Thompson for coordinating a successful National Mirror Event at PYC 11th – 14th August.

It was great to see the harbour ablaze with colour from the 35 boats that were entered. Well done to a number of our Youth members that borrowed boats so they could participate in the event and to the PYC members that received trophies for their efforts

The final results can be found here Results Page