Stepping up to big boats

RYA Racing Manager John Derbyshire discusses the aims of the new Volvo RYA Keelboat sailing scheme

Following the medal haul in sailing from Sydney and at least three hot prospects for Athens, the RYA's Olympic program has been and still is a great success. However the RYA have rightly recognised that when it comes to the sport of 'yacht racing' it does not finish with the Olympics.

To this end they have recently launched the Volvo RYA Keelboat Sailing scheme to encourage and aid talented young sailors wishing to make the move out of dinghies.

"If you take a look at international yachting these days in just about every viable campaign there’s a Kiwi," says RYA Racing Manager John Derbyshire. "The plan is that, down the line somewhere, on every viable international campaign there’ll be a number of Brits because we have a lot of talented sailors and we think we can improve them in the keelboat areas."

While Olympic sailing has been a big poaching ground for America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race campaigns, racing big boats requires much in the way of additional skills and knowledge. The aim of the scheme is to address this as well as setting up opportunities for young dinghy sailors to gain experience on board big boats.

The program is open to those aged 16-24 who have the talent or motivation to race keelboats. "What we want to do is identify talented sailors - some of them will come out of our youth program because we’ve got kids there who are really good sailors, but are too big for the boats as an example," says John Derbyshire. One of the aims of the program is to help prevent talented individuals, unsuited for the Olympics from abandoning sailing.

"So if they’re really good sailors and aspire to the keelboat world we think we should help that both in practical terms of what you do on the boat but also assisting them in obtaining the qualifications they need whether it is Yachtmaster or in electronics, navigational skills," continues Derbyshire.

The plan is to get a group of 20 candidates together by April and whittle this down to around 8-10 in the first year. The program will be run on an annual basis, although better prospects may get to continue for longer .

Running the program at the RYA is Dave Atkinson, who is currently in negotiation with various organisations including RORC, in an attempt to find owners keen on helping out. Derbyshire adds there are new events such as the Europrix in 2005 where as part of the rules it will be necessary for more than 20% of the crew of each boat to be aged under 24. "Where are they going to get that crew? If we’re training talent then one of the places they’d look would be the graduates of our scheme."



One imagines that owners would leap at the chance to have a hot shot dinghy sailor on board and the RYA have set up a CrewSearch program specifically to match those in their program with owners. "We are planning to employ someone to work on CrewSearch who will be involved with the talent spotting side and liasing with the owners to make sure we can place these sailors," says Derbyshire.

Aside from Volvo's support, Derbyshire says that they have had a good response from the industry. "Resources are limited, but there’s been a fantastic support from the industry in terms of providing in-kind support which makes the money go an awful lot further. So if someone comes up with a new navigation programme and you need training on it - we can put someone on that course without a cost to the program. That kind of in-kind benefit is really helpful."

Slightly perplexing is the broad remit of the program, which is designed to be a catch-all for any sort of big boat sailing, be it round the cans, offshore, oceanic, match racing, possibly even singlehanding, etc. One only has to look at the numerous sections within the Inshore and Offshore sections on The Daily Sail to see how diverse this is. Quite how a group with such potentially wide ranging ambitions can be trained in practice remains to be seen. "I think conceptually it is differs from the Olympic or the Youth program in that there is no one end defined goal," says Derbyshire.

"We’re not specifically targeting what people do - we’re trying to find out what their aspirations are and if they appear to have the right attributes we’d like to work with the people at the top end to see if they have the right fit," he continues. "I’m sure that lots of people want to follow in the footsteps of Ellen MacArthur’s footsteps, but there are going to be a lot less people who actually have the right attributes to do that."



Paul Campbell-James has been the first to make use of the new program. "Volvo and the RYA are supporting him to go out to the Coca Cola Cup in New Zealand," says Derbyshire. "He has been around for a little while, but he is a talented young sailor, he obviously has a future ahead of him in the keelboat program and we’d like to think that an owner trying to put together a campaign would look to him"

The scheme is already underway and Dave Atkinson has put together a program using the RYA's collection of First Class 8s (see below). "We have a match race programme, but we’ve also got some standard fleet race training to try and get that going and on the practical side we are planning to work with some of the other fleets around the country," says Derbyshire.

Those who feel they have the right credentials and motivation to get on board the program should send their CVs in to the RYA (see the contacts at the bottom of this article). However the RYA will also be talent spotting from those within their existing programs.

Exactly how the selection process will go ahead has yet to be finalised but Derbyshire says it will not be solely down to the strength of an applicant's CV.

"We’ll shortlist to get a group of 20. There’ll be a practical test because they have to have some skill. Then ultimately it will come down to the coaches assessment of what potential they have. We haven’t discussed a formal ratification panel. At the moment it will be on potential and that will be identified by Dave [Atkinson] and the coaches working on it."

Anyone who thinks that the RYA Volvo Keelboat Sailing program is for them should send their CV and information about their aspirations in keelboat racing to Jill Royse, RYA Keelboat Administrator email: jill.royse@rya.org.uk tel: 023 8062 7437 or click here.

Owners looking to offer their services should contact Dave Atkinson, RYA Racing Services Manager tel: 02380 627400 email: dave.atkinson@rya.org.uk

Training program

26-28 February Keelboat Training (Volvo RYA Keelboat Team Selection) – Rutland Water SC

8-9 March Ladies Match Racing Training – Rutland Water SC

15-16 March Ladies Match Race Qualifier - Rutland Water SC

22-23 March BUSA Keelboat Training – Rutland Water SC

29-30 March BUSA Match Racing Training – Rutland Water SC

5-6 April BUSA National Match Racing Championships – Rutland Water SC

12-13 April Clubs and Classes Match Racing Qualifier – Rutland Water SC

15-17 April Keelboat Training  (Volvo RYA Keelboat Team Selection) – Rutland Water SC

23-25 April Youth Match Racing Training – Rutland Water SC

26-27 April Match Racing Training – Rutland Water SC

17-18 May RYA National Match Racing Qualifier 1 – Rutland Water SC

5-6 July Keelboat Training  (Volvo RYA Keelboat Team Selection) – WPSA

12-13 July Match Racing Training – WPSA

19-20 July RYA National Match Racing Qualifier 2 – WPSA

19-22 August Youth Match Racing Training – WPSA

23-25 August RYA National Youth Match Racing Championships – WPSA

6-7 September Match Racing Training – WPSA

13-14 September RYA National Match Racing Qualifier 3 – WPSA

20-21 September Match Racing Training (provisional) – WPSA

26-28 September RYA National Match Racing Finals – WPSA