Lightning Strikes Six Times
Lightning Louis Saunders wins Derbyshire Youth Sailing Series 2004
Louis Saunders (17) from Combs in North Derbyshire is the new Derbyshire Youth Sailing Series Champion after dominating the 2004 series in his Lightning Class dinghy. ‘Lightning Louis’ has won three of the ten series events, been second in a further three events and with the best six results to count from ten events, this has given him a total score of just 9 points. This means that Combs Sailing Club has provided the Series Champion for the 2nd year running, as it was home territory for last year’s Champion, James Lucas (18).
Louis says “I am thrilled to have won the Championship this year but the results don’t really show how hard the other sailors have pressed me. It is really great fun to have the opportunity to sail at all of the ten clubs in Derbyshire, as each piece of water has its own characteristics.”
Runner-up in the series championship goes to Thomas Levick (15) from Ashbourne who, having scored 32 points, the same as the third placed sailor, Ally Britton (14) from Long Eaton, has achieved two series event wins against Ally’s one win and thus takes the runner-up spot on count back.
The Junior Champion is Ben Haynes (9) from Matlock who scored 63 points sailing in his Optimist Class dinghy, with his best result being a sixth place overall in the final event of the series. Benjamin has achieved a creditable 8th place in the overall standings and has competed in all ten events this year.
Derbyshire Youth Sailing Chairman Roger Britton commented “Congratulations to Louis, Tom, Ally and Benjamin who have all sailed well and to all of these young sailors. They have every right to be proud of themselves for the way in which the racing is conducted and how they are always so eager to get racing. We’re looking forward to next year’s events already and would invite any youth sailors in Derbyshire to come along and have a go.”
Derbyshire Youth Sailing Series Events Officer, Clive Robinson observes “Louis’s consistently high results have been very impressive this year. We have had a wide variety of sailing conditions at the ten events around the County and to achieve such domination demonstrates his ability to perform well in both light and strong winds. With this being Ben’s first full series, he too has done remarkably well.”
This year has been very successful for Derbyshire Youth Sailing winning the coveted MountHaes youth sailing trophy at Bridlington and taking third place overall at the National Schools Sailing Association Team Racing Championships. The squads’ success has led to the Derbyshire team being selected to compete at the National RYA Team Racing Championships at Grafham Water next month.
There have been over 100 sailors compete in one or more event of the ten event series this year and this shows a significant increase on previous years indicating that perhaps sailing is also growing in popularity as well as performance in Derbyshire, not bad for a land-locked county.