Bex Stowe RYA Eric Twiname Victory
by Karenza Morton.
Date: 12 May 2010
Young Baston talent Bex Stowe is riding the crest of a wave after sailing to victory at the RYA Eric Twiname Championships this 8-9 May, which was held at Rutland Water Sailing Club, Leicestershire.
Rutland Sailing Club's Bex, 14, finished a highly-creditable sixth overall in a competitive 69-strong Topper field to claim the top girl accolade in impressive fashion.
Bex's success also helped her East Zone team land the second spot in the race for top overall dinghy prize.
Now in their 24th year, the Championships are the pinnacle of the racing calendar for the RYA Zone and Home Country squads, which are the first rung on the pathway ladder to Olympic classes sailing.
Some 325 sailors, all members of the RYA Zone/Home Country squads, took part at the Championships, which saw racing across six RYA Junior classes - the Optimist, Topper, Feva, Mirror and Cadet dinghy classes with the windsurfers racing on Bic Techno boards with 4.5m, 5.8m, 6.8m and 7.8m rigs.
Having endured testing high winds and driving rain on Saturday, the concluding day of the Championships brought far more favourable conditions for the competitors with the sun coming out to play and breezes dropping from 20 to 10-15 knots.
RYA Youth Racing Manager Duncan Truswell said: "I was particularly impressed with the tenacity of the competitors on Saturday and the quality of boat handling demonstrated in what were really quite breezy and cold conditions.
"It was a really worthy test for the winners with all the races being fiercely contested. I hope the experience will prove an ideal platform for the sailors to go on and contest National Junior Squad selections throughout this season."
John Derbyshire, RYA Performance Director added: "The RYA Eric Twiname Championships are a fundamental rung in the development ladder for the young sailors, some of whom will have started at the absolute grassroots through the RYA's OnBoard and Team15 programmes and for those who we hope will eventually go on to represent Britain as seniors at the World's biggest Olympic Classes regattas."
Support
Thanks to the long-standing and ongoing support of the Eric Twiname Memorial Trust, the event, for sailors aged between eight and 15, is cheap to enter with almost all costs associated with the running of the regatta met by the RYA and the Trust.
The RYA is recognised by all government offices as being the negotiating body for the activities it represents. It continually fights for the rights and freedoms of its 103,000 personal members, the majority of whom choose to go afloat for purely recreational non-competitive pleasure on coastal and inland waters.
It represents a further estimated 500,000 boat owners nationally through its 1600 affiliated clubs and boat owner associations.
Further event information about the 2010 RYA Eric Twiname Championships can be found at the RYA Racing Events website www.ryaracingevents.org.uk
Find out more about how to get involved in sailing and windsurfing at www.rya.org.uk
