Olympic Campaigns
The Royal Thames Yacht Club is committed to excellence in all areas of yachting and is particularly proud of a select number of members who are challenging for selection in the 2012 Olympics.
The Club will host an Olympic Benefit Dinner on Thursday 4th November in support of members campaigns. Tickets are £55 and can be booked by contacting Annabel Hunt: memsec@royalthames.com or 02072016263
A short biography of each of the RTYC hopefuls is outlined below.
Ben Saxton
A report from Ben on his campaign:
Our 470 Olympic campaign is progressing promisingly. During the spring there were two major competitions. The first was the princess Sofia trophy in Palma. We were delighted to finish 15th overall. The highlight of the event was going into the last day of fleet racing in 13th only a few points off the top 10 which would have put us into the medal race. The second large regatta was Hyeres. My crew David Kohler unfortunately had exams at the university of Edinburgh which clashed with this event. Therefore I sailed with my twin brother Tim. We were a little unpolished but still managed to finish 22nd overall. These results were particularly great as there was almost 100 boats competing at both of these regattas. We were second GBR boat at both events.
Thanks to these performances David Kohler and I have now moved up to 22nd in the ISAF ranking list. Now that I have also finished my exams at the university of Southampton were getting back into training (catching up on lost time) so that we are ready to perform at the World Championships and Sail For Gold this summer.
A new RTYC Member, Mary is a serious contender for a place at the London Olympic games in the new Womens' Match racing discipline. She is the current National Champion in this newly designated Olympic Class for Women replacing the Yngling.
Mary is currently focused on gaining experience internationally against the best competition in the world both as a helm and crew. Since giving up her job in March to devote herself to team GB selection, she has been and is going to many national and international match racing competitions.
She has been sailing with Sally Barlow, as a jib trimmer in many high level international Match Racing competitions. The lessons she is learning are invaluable and her performance as a helm is steadily improving. Mary has also been training hard in Britain in various locations around the south coast.
Mary is a very determined individual, extremely dedicated and focused on her sport and success for 2012.