Junior & Youth Update February 2020 by Ben Nicholls
RYA regional focus
The RYA Youth Racing Committee sets Youth Racing policy for all age groups U23 (predominantly U19 Youth Classes and U16 Junior Classes). There is a significant change of focus going forward. The national role of the Pathway Managers has gone, instead the focus is more regional and with this the stronger High Performance Manager (HPM) team has greater role and importance. Greater experience and expertise is brought to these roles to support sailors in education and to support coaching teams.
Junior and Zone Squads will no longer exist, instead regional training groups operating at the level of Junior National Squad. This will mean a change for the Laser 4.7 sailors.
The RYA are rebuilding the foundations of racing in the UK with a strategy to reinvigorate youth sailing through a regional club focus. Significant funding to the RYA is predicated upon Junior & Youth success (Sport UK) and Olympic success (National Lottery), so developing and retaining the best racing sailors in the world must remain a key focus. The RYA is striving to encourage:
- inclusive & accessible training throughout the UK.
- inclusive & accesssible racing, both regional & national.
- develope you g sailors with the skills to transition into youth classes.
- alignment across regions and Home Countries.
What does this mean for UKLA sailors?
With out recent focus on broadening the UKLA offerings such as Class Training (sponsored by Sailing Chandlery) to become more regional, we are already heading in the direction that the RYA are now encouraging. This will hopefully see more alignment between the Junior & Youth Laser sailing and the regional Grand Prix. The RYA seem to be encouraging a return of the older Traveller Series model in our regions. It also hopefully will encourage a return to The majority of UKLA sailors seeing the National Championships as the key event in the UK Laser calendar that most keen racers strive to attend.
UKLA Youth focus:
Ben Nicholls chairs the UKLA’s sub-Committee / working group, which up until now has had a focus on training, events and policy for sailors U21. Given the RYA’s encouragement of sailors in fulltime education, we will extend the remit to U23. The Working Group includes UKLA’s Chairman, Sailing Secretary, Training Officer, Secretary & 4.7 Rep. The RYA’s Laser Rep and additional volunteers wanting to help improve the UKLA’s offering to our younger sailors are also involved. We have a younger sub-group of Youth sailors who help us collect feedback and give is information on what the young sailors are looking for. Volunteers (parents and sailors) are encouraged to step forward and become involved, your help to progress the sport is welcomed. For example:
- We are engaged with ILCA looking to host one of the younger age category Laser World Championships in 2021 and need to build an event team.
- We are looking for someone to represent the U23 Standard sailors, Phil Acton has been a tremendous help to the Group, but with Jack transitioning into Keelboats now, we seek another volunteer to take this forward...?
- We are always looking for rib owners and volunteers to help put on the events. Thank you to the many of you that do regularly assist, if it were not for your support the racing could not take place. Those not yet engaged is helping, we do need your support please...
The UKLA’s SailingFast Youth Series is underway having started in September 2019. We plan for this to become a core part of UKLA’s year-round offering. The results from these events will carry forward into a rolling UKLA Youth Ranking.