2020 Western Australian Sailing Squad Camp 1 Report

Report by Matt Jerwood

After a several months of online learning and home training, the 2020 Western Australian Sailing Squad (WASS) Program successfully held its first on water camp of the year at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. Firstly, a big thank you to Shelley White and Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club for hosting the event, sharing their facilities, and helping ensure the camp was a success.

 

Thirty two sailors took part in the camp under the guidance of coaches Arthur Brett, Tessa Parkinson, Ben Walkemeyer and myself. Over the two days the weather was rather grey and wet, but the sailors and coaches toughed it out to make the most of the wind on the Swan River. 

 

An exciting new addition to the WASS Program in 2020 are the Windfoilers. It is as it reads, windsurfing but on hydrofoils, as close to a hover board on water as you can get, high speed racing, flying along a metre above the water. This new class succeeds the more traditional RSX Windsurfer in the Paris 2024 Olympics using IQ Foil Class equipment. Six young lads attended the camp, two having transitioned from 29ers, one from Laser and the other three from Techno’s and other course racing race windsurfing classes. Throughout the year we will see more of the windfoilers at the camps and hopefully we can see more sailors keen to test their skills and giving it a try. 

 

Another highlight of the camp was the ten-boat strong 29er cohort at the camp, building on the foundations laid last year. The fleet trained together with a focus on starting, making the most of having the numbers and quality in the training group. 

 

The WASS Laser group has had great success over the past two years, and they started the year strongly with Coach Ben Walkemeyer back for 2020 to lead the squad. It was great to see a new face in the laser squad at their first WASS camp, Lili McAullay in the 4.7. As well seeing some of the 4.7 sailors from last year stepping up and taking on the challenge of the Radial is a big positive. A challenge now for these sailors is to continue to build their strength and fitness to be able to boss the bigger rig around.

 

In all, a successful first camp, with camp two scheduled for next month.

 

WASS sailors will be getting back to the gym at the WAIS facility later this week as part of their strength and fitness training. 

 

Matt