Day 1 at the RYA Youth Nationals 2014, WPNSA - with Luke Patience Olympic Silver Medallist
3,520 views · Published 14 April 2014 · 3:36 · Indexed 30 October 2026
Channel: Royal Yachting Association - RYA · 2014 · Sports
http://www.rya.org.uk/go/youthnats2014 The RYA Youth National Championships 2014 kicked off today (Monday 14 April) for the majority of classes at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy as a light building breeze greeted the record breaking entry of 392 sailors at the RYA's premier youth racing event. The six Youth classes took to the water as scheduled to then find themselves waiting for the light thermal breeze which eventually came in at around 3pm and remained between 6-10 knots on the four course areas being used in Portland Harbour and Weymouth Bay. The RS:X windsurfers were the only class to complete their first race as scheduled before a further two races were completed once the sea breeze came into play. The 420, and Spitfire were the only other classes to complete the full schedule of three races, while the 29er and Laser Standard finished two with the Laser Radials only managing the one race. In the highly competitive 29er fleet, Owen Bowerman and Morgan Peach opened their regatta in style with a 1-2 in the yellow fleet to cement their position at the top of the leaderboard, while Ruth Allan and Alice Masterman had the same success in the blue fleet with an impressive 1-2. "We are really pleased with our results today -- we have had a solid start with consistent results which is a great way to start the regatta," enthused Peach. "We had good boat speed today, the key was to just keep your head out the boat and concentrate on our speed. It was a bit of a lottery out there so to be able to rely on our boat speed was definitely the key to our success today." The duo who won the bronze medal at the 2013 event in Largs, Scotland, admitted to despite having to wait almost two hours before completing their first race, to loving the conditions out in the Bay on day one of the regatta. "The conditions out there were really nice once the sea breeze kicked in today. We had a long wait out on the water but once we got racing it was great. It was perfect Bay conditions, it couldn't of been any nicer -- it was warm, the sun was out which meant the guns were out," laughed helm Bowerman. "Hopefully we will be able to complete four races tomorrow as the breeze looks pretty strong which we are looking forward to. Our main aim is to just keep consistent and take every day as it comes, we weren't expecting to be winning on the first day but it's a nice feeling and a nice position to be in."
