British Youth to take on Match Racing World

Double RYA Youth Match Racing Champion Mark Lees launches campaign for ISAF Youth Match Racing World Championships

Young match racer Mark Lees, currently Britain’s second ranked skipper, at #29 on the ISAF World Match Racing rankings, has teamed up with three sailors from the British Keelboat Academy and will represent Great Britain at this summer’s inaugural ISAF Youth Match Racing World Championships in Helsinki, Finland.  

The new team of Lees, James French, also a past UK Youth National Match Racing Champion, Trystan Seal and Rob Bunce are already hard at work training alongside Annabel Vose and her British University team and have competed twice in Helsinki this month, racing the modified J-80s to be used at the Youth World Championships from the 23-27 July.  

“Whilst we are a new team, we are confident in each other and are starting to gel nicely” explained Lees. “We have a lot of experience for young guys, across a wide range of fleet racing classes and disciplines as well as match racing and I think that will really help us come together as a team as we’ve got a lot to do in a very short space of time.”  

Among that experience includes one-design National Championship wins in Optimist and Etchells classes, sailing AC 45 catamarans in the selection trials for the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup and crewing aboard Mini Maxi World Champion, Ran II.  

In the build up to the Youth Worlds the team, who are supported by the RYA, are racing two qualifying events to the Alpari World Match Racing Tour and also the Royal Southern Match Cup, the first Grade two regatta to be held in the UK for six years.  

“The J-80s in Helsinki are unique in the world in the way they have been modified for Match Racing, with large symmetric spinnakers and overlapping genoas meaning the crew have their work cut out to make all the manoeuvres happen smoothly” commented James French. “We feel we’ve given ourselves the best preparation possible for the Worlds having already done two high class events in the boats.”  

This weekend (31 May – 1 June) the team will be in Szczecin, Poland and go head to head with a star studded line up including four current or previous World Tour Card Holders and seven skippers ranked inside the top 15. The top seed is British number one and quadruple World Champion Ian Williams.  

“We are really looking forward to racing against the top guys” said Trystan Seal. “We know we’re starting from scratch as a new team but I believe that the best way to learn fast is to race the best guys out there. We are certainly doing that!”  

Follow the team’s progress on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GBRmatchracing   

For more information on the RYA Racing Programme please visit  www.rya.org.uk/racing.