On the road to success

We speak to the next prospective Ainslie - up and coming GBR Laser sailor Giles Scott

Singlehanded sailing in the UK has long been very strong at Olympic level. Ben Ainslie, Shirley Robertson and Paul Goodison - to name a few - have all become figures synonymous with greatness. Hot on their heels, however is a new group of talented young sailors coming through the system.

One such sailor is Giles Scott. The 18-year-old is already making an impressive impact: just outside the top 20 in the Athens Eurolymp 2004, Warnemunder Week 2005 and the 2005 Laser European Championship. He has also managed a very impressive 20th position at the 2005 Laser World Championships, where he was top under 21-year-old.

Like many sailors before him Scott began his sailing career in an Optimist from the age of six. He lives in a small hamlet called Rushton, a stone's throw away from Grafham Sailing Club where he does most of his sailing. Currently Scott is in his first year of at Southampton University studying geology - “not the usual yacht design course, I know,” Scott comments before the sentence has even formed on our lips.

Clearly a singlehanded sailor through and through Scott is an excellent example of the effectiveness of the RYA’s training system. He has moved from the Optimist, to the Topper, to the Laser Radial and finally the Laser. Although he never really raced his Optimist he has been winning races for many years having his first taste of glory in the Topper where he was Inland National Champion and National Champion as well as notching up success in traveller’s trophies and open meeting circuits before moving onto the Laser Radial. “I got into the junior British Topper team when I was 12 and did that for two years before I got into the Radials. I was about 14 when I stopped sailing the Topper and got into sailing the Laser Radial,” explains Scott. Success did not stop as Scott transferred to the Laser Radial youth class where he was third at the 2002 youth selection trials giving him a chance to compete at the Youth Worlds in Canada. Here he finished a useful third overall.

Scott says that there were several key moments when he realised that he wanted to be an Olympic sailor, one of the first times was at the Eric Twiname Trophy, where the top junior sailors from each region in the UK compete against each other. “They had guest speakers like Ben Ainslie and people like that who I saw as huge heroes really. It just made me think that I would love to be like that and do a campaign,” he explains. Although this is the time that he realised he wanted to be an Olympic sailor, becoming aware that he might have the skill to take his sailing that far is a more blurred moment. “As far as I can pinpoint it, I suppose I started to think that I could do this well when I started winning in Toppers,” he comments.

The RYA has been a key part of sailing for Scott for a very long time. “As soon as I was looking to get into any form of squad I started to feel the influence of the RYA. Before that though they had set training days and I was aware that my main goal was to get into the youth squad. So they have pretty much been a part of my sailing since I started in the Topper,” he explains. The RYA continues to play a large part in his sailing as he is now on the Olympic Development Squad, the penultimate funding level before the ultimate World Class Performance Squad. The upshot of this is that Scott gets some money towards his sailing but also goes to training camps over the winter run especially for him and others on the squad.

Scott seems very happy with the funding that he is getting from the RYA currently funds all his overseas sailing. He adds however that part of the reason it covers everything is because he is not doing as many events as he would like to due to his university commitments. “It is hard;” he says “there is a bit of a conflict there. I have to try and get the university on side with time off for sailing. They have fairly good about it so far.” It is not, however, just the university that have to be kept onside as Scott has commitments to the RYA to keep the funding he is currently getting. Therefore he has to carefully juggle his commitments to both institutions - a situation that many of our top young sailors find themselves in.

The support of the RYA and Scott's Olympic Development Squad status do seem to be having a positive effect on his sailing. In July 2005 for example at the ISAF Youth Worlds in Korea he came away with a Gold medal. From there he went on to compete in the Laser Senior European Championships achieving 21st place and followed by the Laser Senior World Championship where he was 20th overall and first under 21. He was also a very impressive sixth at the Princess Sophia Trophy in Palma at the beginning of the season.

Training camps and working with coaches are two things that Scott has been doing for much of his life and as such is something that he is very much used to. Mark Barren and Dave Cockerill were his two main coaches during his Topper sailing days. Later, in both the Laser and the Laser Radial, again Scott had two coaches Chris Gowers and Ian Clingan.




When asked about his peers the first name mentioned is Nick Thompson. “Nick [Thompson] is about the same age as me and has had very similar results to me in the last year or so.” This is not a surprising comment, as when you look at Thompson’s sailing career to date, it mirrors Scott’s very closely. Thompson won a gold medal at the ISAF Youth World Championships in 2004 and has begun to break into the senior Laser fleet very convincingly in the last year. Beyond that Scott says that obviously there is Paul Goodison who is still some way ahead but not totally out of reach. Another strong contender in the Laser is fellow Olympic Development Squad member, Charles Ballie Strong.

Scott’s main ambition is to get an Olympic medal. “I would love to go to the Olympics in Weymouth. I can’t imagine what it will be like, but I am sure it will be pretty special,” he tells us excitedly. And in the short term? “This year my main focus is on the European Championship in Korea and the World Championship in Poland. I have never sailed in Poland so I am really looking forward to that,” he says, adding that he would be happy with similar results as he had at last years events and is looking at this season to consolidate his position.

The end of this year looks like it will hold a big decision for Scott. Although he is currently enjoying sailing the Laser he is exceedingly tall and continually struggling to keep down to weight. While it is not a great issue at the moment but Scott believes that it is going to be more difficult for him to stay in the competitive weight band as time moves on. For these reasons he is thinking about moving into the Finn. “That would require some pretty serious beefing up down the gym,” admits Scott. Although he is only considering this at the moment he thinks that the class change is somewhat inevitable fopr him. “The earliest time I would make the decision is after this year’s World Championships. Having said that I can see myself in the Finn for 2012."

Scott is clearly following in the footsteps of some great sailors and with a possible move from the Laser to the Finn it would appear that he is following in one great sailor’s footsteps particularly. He has already proved that he has what it takes to be one of a few really good sailors in the world. Whether Scott has what it takes to be one of the genuinely great sailors in the world remains to be seen. Watch this space.