2012 RYA Eric Twiname Championships preview

Racing in the 2011 RYA Eric Twiname Championships © Paul Wyeth / RYA

Rutland Sailing Club will welcome sailors from across the nation as the battle for the 2012 RYA Eric Twiname Championship crown kicks off this weekend (12-13 May), with the RYA West Zone entering the regatta looking to retain the coveted Eric Twiname Shield for a consecutive second year running.

This annual Junior event, always fiercely competitive and one of the highlights of the RYA’s Racing calendar, is now in its 26th year and will see 325 contenders in over 285 boats and windsurfers pit their sailing skills against the best young talents from each of the six English Zones, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, in a bid to help their Zone or home country team clinch the RYA Eric Twiname Championship crown.

The highly charged weekend will offer the RYA Zone/Home Country Squads competitive racing in a fun and friendly environment. The weekend will welcome boats from across nine of the RYA Junior classes - Optimist, Topper, Feva, Mirror and Cadet dinghy classes with the windsurfers racing on Bic Techno boards with 4.5m, 5.8m, 6.8m and 7.8m rigs.

The regatta is the perfect platform for the Junior competitors to put into practice all they have learnt over the winter training months. For the majority of the sailors this will be their first experience of competing in a multi class, multi course, national event, which will no doubt put them in good stead for their regattas over the summer period.

Last year’s event witnessed a supreme standard of racing across all nine classes, with sailors from the RYA West Zone clinching the prestigious RYA Eric Twiname Trophy in emphatic style. The current champions will be eager to defend their crown, however will face stiff competition from the RYA South Zone who finished runners-up in 2011 plus the remaining seven teams who all have the potential to proudly walk away with event victory.

Duncan Truswell, RYA Youth Racing Manager, commented: “The RYA Eric Twiname Championship is always a real highlight of the Youth Racing calendar. It has all the scale, professionalism, processes and procedures of the RYA Volvo Youth National Championships offered in a supportive and productive learning environment.

“Once again it is great to see competitors attending from all over the UK with a huge number of coaches, RYA High Performance Managers and highly experienced volunteer race officials all on-site to ensure that the sailors receive the very best service and get the opportunity prior to the Summer selection events to practice and learn all the skills, techniques and processes to propel them towards National Junior Squad selection and enjoy a lifetime within the sport.

Truswell concluded: “I am sure this year’s event will once again be great fun, as thanks to the generous support of the Eric Twiname Trust we can lay on an extensive social programme as well as great racing. Our thanks must go to the Trust and also to Rutland Sailing Club for hosting once more this prestigious event and helping us to keep costs down by fielding an army of volunteers to support Youth Sailing.”

Thanks to the long-standing and on-going support of the Eric Twiname Memorial Trust, the event, for sailors aged between eight and 15, is very cheap to enter with almost all of the costs associated with the running of the regatta met by the RYA and the Trust.

The first part of the selection process for the 2012 RYA Laser 4.7 National Junior Squad will also take place alongside the Championships, with results from Rutland used in conjunction with those from further indicator events later in the season.

Racing is scheduled to start at Rutland at 11.25am on Saturday 12th May with a maximum of seven races set for the weekend (up to four races on Saturday, and up to three on Sunday). No warning signal will be made after 3pm on Sunday 13th May.

For more information about the regatta please visit the event website www.ryaracingevents.org.uk