Angus Kemp makes GB sailing team Laser radial youth squad

Another club member’s success!

Angus Kemp has gained a place in the GB sailing team Laser Radial youth squad. He is one of only seven boys and five girls from all of the UK and Ireland. The squad starts formal training early in November with their first international event in Palamos Spain late December. Needless to say Angus is "Really chuffed"

For Angus it all began over 10 years ago with a tiny little six year old in his Opi of Hamworthy beach on the end of a 100m floating line. He was way too young to do Wednesday nights but the Opi Start Race coach at the time, Tim Edom, said if he did OK at the Club Regatta on the White Course he could join in. Angus went on to win the White Course and so his journey began.

After a couple of seasons in the Opi doing the class Nationals (not very well he was ill) Inlands and several national rankers he moved, following his sister, into the Topper. At nine he was the youngest sailor to make the South Zone Squad, which he did for two years, then at 11 he was the youngest ever to make the Intermediate Squad. After a season in Intermediate he advanced to the National Squad, which gave him two more seasons of high-level training. In his last year of Toppers he won every Southern Traveller event, missed out on winning the Worlds by a fraction, ask him about checking toe strap lines! Angus won his last National Series event and then waved goodbye to the Topper and tried out for the Laser National Squad in the 4.7 rig.

This summer he took part in the Greek nationals on the coast off Athens, followed a few days later by the Youth Europeans at the same venue, a couple of days later the Kemps were off to Germany from Athens, along with one of the girls, as they had both been selected for the GB team to compete at the German Europa Cup. Then home, a day or so later Angus was off to Scotland for the Nationals, straight back to Poole the day after they finished to do Parkstone Youth Week with most of his old 4.7 mates. The Impala Nationals followed a day or so later in Weymouth, then Poole Week back in the Laser, with the summer finished off by the Sonata Lift Keel Nationals, sailing with a bunch of his Laser mates, he was only at home for a hand full of days all summer.

Looking at the diary today, he only has one weekend free between now and Christmas, the rest taken up by two World/European qualifiers, squad training with the Radial Squad, open class training, the Inlands plus the Radial lads are also all starting to train this winter in the standard (full) rig so they are in a good position to transition into standard rigs over the next eighteen months to two years, probably helped by the lure of the 2020 Under 21 Worlds (raced in standard rigs in Garda next summer). Just before Christmas he is off to Palamos in Spain for their Christmas Regatta then the 2020 season starts in earnest.

For any of our Junior Sailors coming through Wednesday nights with aims and passions: train hard, spend as much time on the water as you can, perfect your skills and make sure you are as fit as possible. Try different boats when you can, get involved with our Commodores’ Challenge, you will gain huge transferable skills from that alone but most of all make sure it’s fun.