Starcross YC awarded

Volvo RYA Champion Club status for Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes' club

Starcross Yacht Club has been awarded the esteemed Volvo RYA Champion Club status for their commitment to youth sailing and delivery of high level training at their club. Team GBR sailors, Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes together with Andy Strutt from Volvo Dealership, Kastner Exeter presented the award to Jeremy Lees, Starcross Yacht Club’s Commodore, Ian Hodges and Rupert Poole, joint Chairman of the Club’s junior section.

On presenting the award Stevie Morrison said: “It’s great to see kids so enthusiastic in sailing and already dreaming about one day competing for Great Britain at the Olympics and I am sure we will see some of these young faces standing on the podium in the future.”

Guests of honor , Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes, represented Team GBR at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, after winning the 49er World Championship title in 2007. They are currently being coached by double Olympic silver medallist Joe Glanfield.

The Volvo RYA Champion Club Programme recognises sailing clubs with a commitment to youth sailing and race coaching in the UK. It aims to encourage young sailors and windsurfers at grassroots level to stay in the sport and learn to compete, while encouraging clubs to introduce youngsters to the sport and help develop their skills. The key challenge for the programme is to encourage more young people to start participating in sailing and then progress with their racing careers.

Andy Strutt from Volvo dealership, Kastner Exeter said: “We are delighted to be presenting this award in recognition of the great work that Starcross Yacht Club has done to help young sailors to develop their racing skills, and following the success of British sailors at the Beijing Olympics last summer we may well be training future Olympians here in Starcross ”.

Ian Hodges, Chairman of Starcross Yacht Club’s youth section said on receiving the award : “We’ve just been granted our Volvo RYA Champion Club status which is great news for the club and we’re really looking forward to the extra support and backing we will get now as a result of this.”

Now Starcross Yacht Club has been awarded the Volvo RYA Champion Club Status, the sailors will see increased levels of development advice and professional coaching including support from their local RYA High Performance Manager Chris Atherton. He commented “it really is an exciting time to be involved in the Volvo RYA Champion Club Programme and the incentives are there for every club to take full advantage of. The easier we can make it for more clubs to do that then the quicker the sport of sailing will benefit.”

Starcross will also have access to the commitment from Sport England of £1.1m to the RYA’s flagship youth sailing initiatives, to further enhance club coach and volunteer development across England over the next four years.