Ben Settle wins Junior National Sailing Championships

Ben Settle, year 10 student, has been sailing since he was 9 years old.  This year he has successfully juggled his school work with a busy sailing schedule and has competed at local, national and international events.  Here he talks about his successes of the last few months...

“I raced a single-handed Optimist Dinghy for 4 years but this year decided to gain experience of sailing a two-handed boat.  Along with a friend I joined the Mirror National Development Squad and spent several bitterly cold winter weekends fine tuning skills ahead of the main racing season.

The season started with a fantastic win at the Junior National Championships.  It was very close racing but we beat two old Optimist friends of mine to take the title with seconds to spare in the last race.

We’ve had many other good events during the year, also winning the Northern traveller series, coming 2nd in The Scottish Nationals, 3rd in the Northern Championships, 11th in the Irish Nationals and 12th in the British Nationals.

Without doubt though, the main highlight of the year was representing Team GBR at The Mirror World Championships which were held at Lough Derg in County Tipperary, Ireland.  The conditions were very challenging and there were 91 boats taking part - we ended up 15th - this was a great result given the strength of the competition!  I also met some fantastic people from all round the world including South Africa, Australia, Canada, Sweden and the Philippines.

With so much time spent away from home I have had little opportunity to race at my home club, Beaver Sailing Club, found to the south of Selby near Snaith.  Luckily Beaver is hosting the last major event of the year, The British Inland Championships, on 21st and 22nd September.”