Sixteen-year-old Thomas Holland from Kielder Water Sailing Club has been awarded the Royal Yachting Association North East Young Sailor of the Year title and will receive the Trident Trophy for 2006.

Holland is a member of the RYA Scottish Sailing Team (as he lives only a few miles south of the Scottish border it is easier for him to compete for Scotland rather than have to make regular 1,200-mile round trips to Southampton to compete for England). These ‘squads’ as they are known are the RYA’s fast-track way of spotting potential talent for future Olympics.

In 2006 Holland has sailed in the 29er world championship and the UK Championships with his twin brother Fergus, as well as in the 49er World Championships with another Kielder sailor, Paul Turnbull. He has also competed successfully in the Cherub national championship and in the Osprey national championship (during which he won the Best Under 21 Crew trophy). His sailing skills are very versatile and he is at home sailing virtually any type of high performance dinghy and he has a great future as he moves up to international adult classes.

Holland’s talents do not end at sailing and having just completed his GCSEs and entered 6th form he has also recently won the 2006 Northumberland Young Designer and Technologist of the Year Award for designing and building a revolutionary new windsurfing board – another area of sailing in which he also excels.

Holland is a dedicated member of Kielder Water Sailing Club and in between his RYA Team commitments he teaches the finer points of sailing to other members of the club. He has been an RYA Assistant Instructor since the age of 14 and is currently studying for his full RYA Instructor certificate and should hopefully be awarded this certificate in October 2006. He will become one of the youngest RYA Instructors in the UK. Holland is currently studying Maths, Physics and Chemistry A’levels at Hayden Bridge High School with a view to studying Engineering at University in 2008.

Holland will be presented with the Trident Trophy at a sailing event in the next few weeks and he becomes the RYA North East official nominee for the Raymarine National Young Sailor of the Year Award (organised by the Yachting Journalists’ Association), and the RYA nominee for the Sport England NE Young Achiever Award.

Previous winners of the NE Young Sailor of the Year Award have gone on to follow successful sailing careers with Olympic potential.

1998 Graham Vials (Derwent Reservoir SC)
1999 Stephen Wilson (Ullswater SC)
2000 Tom Dawson (Sunderland YC)
2001 Suzanne Hamilton (Derwent Reservoir SC)
2002 Paul Davis (Sunderland YC)
2003 Eve English (South Shields SC)
2004 Fergus Holland (Kielder Water SC)
2005 Bruce Carnaby (Newbiggin by the Sea SC)