Issue date
The battle for the last three spots up for grabs in the NZL Sailing Foundation youth team for July's Youth Sailing World Championships are bound to be intense when the Yachting New Zealand 29er and Nacra 15 youth trials get underway at Easter.
Fran Kayrouz and Jackson Keon won this year's 29er world title and will hope to earn selection for this year's Youth Sailing World Championships. Photo: RHKYC.
Four sailors have already been confirmed for the team to sail at Corpus Christie in the US - Josh Armit (boy's Laser Radial), Samantha Stock (girl's Laser Radial), Veerle ten Have (girl's RS:X) and Max Van der Zalm (boy's RS:X) - and others will be added.
The 420 national championships in Christchurch on March 15-18 will act as their nomination regatta. The boy's and girl's skiff (29er) and mixed multihull (Nacra 15) will be the last selection regatta and promises to be a great contest with tight racing expected across all of the fleets.
Last year's boy's and girl's selection was decided on countback at last year's youth trials. Seb Lardies and Scott McKenzie won the nod last year and will be back again but they will once again be up against 29er world champions Fran Kayrouz and Jackson Keon.
Crystal Sun and Olivia Hobbs, who competed at last year's youth worlds before being the first female crew at this year's 29er world championships are too old to compete this time around.
Greta Stewart won last year's selection in the Nacra 15 with Henry Haslett but will have a new partner this time around in Tom Fyfe with Haslett also being too old to qualify.
Stewart and Fyfe and Hamish McLaren and Rebecca Morgan will also be heading to the Nacra 15 world championships in Spain at the end of April.
Entries are now open for the 29er and Nacra 15 youth trials, which will be held at the Kohimarama Yacht Club on March 29-April 2.
See here for the notice of race and here for the entry form.
