Queensland sailors Angus Galloway & Alexander Gough have won selection into Australia’s Youth Sailing team preparing to compete in the 40th Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships in the international 420 class held in Istanbul, Turkey in July this year.
Finally we are home after a long year of training and racing throughout Australia. The year was to say the least, full-on from day one with training five times a week at RQYS with Queensland Academy of Sport sailing team coach Adrian Finglas. We went into the year with strong goals: to win selection to the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships.
The first test of the year was the QLD 420 states held at RQYS. The event was the first real chance to put our training to the test and winning the regatta was a real confidence booster. The next big regatta for us was the Australian Mid Winter Youth championships. With seventeen 420’s competing and our arch rivals from WA attending this was a perfect opportunity to show our dominance in the 420 class. We won convincingly with an 11 point gap between us and the 2nd place team from Victoria who were new sailors in the 420 class but with two strong sabot backgrounds. The next competition was the 420 NSW Youth state championships at George’s River Sailing Club. With the boys from Victoria attending we knew it was going to be tough one especially as I was recovering from a bike crash during a ride from the Gap to RQYS to attend training just two weeks before the NSW comp. After two short days of racing we came out on top, winning every race. Another positive was to see our training partners the Ryan sisters winning the girls division and overall 2nd place.
With a large gap between our next regattas it was back into the normal routine of training and school work. Before we knew it, it was time for final preparations for Sail Brisbane and the start of the Sail Down Under series with a Yachting Australia high performance camp held at RQ. On the second day of training we broke a vital part on the mast making it unusable. A slight set back before Sail Brisbane which started the next day. But we told ourselves it was a positive that it broke now rather than in regatta or even at Nationals. So we fully set up our second mast that night and were ready to race in the morning.
After three strong days of racing we were comfortably in first place with one day to go with forecasted strong winds. The forecast was right with winds over 30 knots recorded so we knew that for most sailors this was survival conditions not really racing. Our game plan was just to complete the race and not break equipment needed for the rest of the Sail Down Under series and Nationals. Unfortunately we snapped our ruder blade in half while fighting for the lead, forcing us into a wild capsize. We righted the boat and attempted to sail in rudderless in 25-30 knots. This proved harder than we thought and we capsized and bent our mast in the Manly mud. We finished 3rd overall in Sail Brisbane. Next on the list was Sydney International Regatta with the strong Singapore sailing team competing we knew it was going to be a hard fight for the overall winner. We once again came out on top with a point’s gap of nine to second place.
After the win in Sydney it was straight to Melbourne for series team training with the Queensland Academy of Sport coach Adrian Finglas before Sail Melbourne started. This was awesome with the whole 420 team training before sail Melbourne even started. After three days of training we were ready to race. We finished the regatta in first overall with a big enough point’s gap to be able to not do the last race. We boarded a plane home while the boat was loaded and driven to Adelaide for the 420 Open Nationals and the Australian youth championships which are the selection trials for the 2010 Australian Youth team.
We arrived in Adelaide ready to race at the nationals with over 50 boats from Australia and overseas competing. We finished 3rd overall with the WA boys just beating us and then the highly skilled Singapore team who were fourth in the 2009 Youth Worlds, in first place. This meant that we had to finish first Australian at the Youth nationals to win the selection to represent our country at the Youth Worlds. Two days later we moved onto the final event – the OAMPS Australian Youth Nationals knowing that we had to beat the boys from WA to win the spot. We did just that and finished first Australian overall.
Angus and I would like to thank Commodore Russell Mcart and all supporters of Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron; the team at Yachting Queensland; Queensland Academy of Sport and coaches Adrian Finglas, Mike Fletcher, John Warlow, Ben Callard. We wouldn’t be able to sail with the support of sponsors and companies including Zhik, Bars Optics, Evolution sails and Muir Marine. With the hard work throughout the year paying off we finally completed our 2009 goals.
2010 is going to be another highly challenging sailing year for Angus Galloway and Alex Gough.
Alex Gough 19.1.2010
