National Accolade For South Staffs’ Teen Powerboat Champ

Kamila Czartolomna YJA Young Sailor of Year runner up for Honda RYA Youth RIB win

Perton driving ace Kamila Czartolomna has been named as a runner-up in the most prestigious award in British junior sailing.

South Staffordshire Sailing Club’s Kamila, 14, was one of just three young people shortlisted for the 2014 boats.com Yachting Journalists’ Association (YJA) Young Sailor of the Year Award in recognition of her achievement of becoming the first girl in more than 10 years to be crowned national Honda RYA Youth RIB Champion (13-16 years) last September.

Among the previous winners of the YJA Young Sailor award include four-time Olympic gold medallist and America’s Cup hero, Sir Ben Ainslie (1995), history-making round-the-world yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur (1994) and London 2012 silver medallist, Hannah Mills (2002) putting Kamila in very esteemed company.

Kamila attended the YJA Awards Ceremony and gala luncheon at Trinity House in London last Tuesday (13 January), where junior double world champion windsurfer, Emma Wilson, was named the boats.com YJA Young Sailor of the Year Award. 

Now in its 13th year, the Honda RYA Youth RIB Championship is Britain’s leading programme introducing kids to powerboats and training them to be safe, proficient drivers and excellent boat handlers. 

RIBs are light, manoeuvrable craft and the boats driven in the Honda RYA Youth RIB Championship can hit speeds of up to 25mph. The youngsters compete in time trials around sets of marks with the driver with the fastest time over two rounds claiming victory.

This was the third successive year Perton Middle School pupil Kamila had qualified for the national grand final but the first time in the older 13-16 years age-group having previously competed at 8-12 years level. 

The 2015 Honda RYA Youth RIB West Midlands Regional Final, from where the winners qualify for the national final at the PSP Southampton Boat Show in September, will take place at South Staffordshire SC, Gailey, on Saturday 2 May.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first person to sail single-handed non-stop around the world in 1969, won the main YJA Yachtsman of the Year Award for his feats in the solo transatlantic 2014 Route du Rhum race aged 75.

Sir Ben Ainslie was also on hand at the ceremony to collect a special Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of close friend and fellow Olympic and America’s Cup sailing star, Iain Percy, for the organisation of the inaugural Bart’s Bash charity initiative, which set a Guinness World Record for being the biggest sailing event of all time in September.

South Staffs SC was the 2011 RYA Club of The Year awarded to Britain’s best sailing club and the overall winners of the 'Community Sport and Recreation Awards’ for Britain’s best community sports club in 2012. 

Thanks to Championship sponsors Honda and Highfield. For more information about the Honda RYA Youth RIB Championship visit www.rya.org.uk/go/hondayouthrib

To find out how you can get involved at South Staffs SC, including the club’s 2015 RYA learn to sail course dates, visit www.southstaffssailingclub.co.uk