Following several months of evaluating a number of high performance dinghies suitable for youth racing, the Royal Yachting Association’s Race Training Committee (RTC) has announced that the two person, single trapeze 29er will become the new RYA recognised asymmetric youth class in the UK.

If the ISAF adopt a youth asymmetric class at its annual meeting in November and that class isn’t the 29er, the RTC may reconsider its choice.

The 29er is intended to fill the gap between the 405, which is the RYA recognised Junior asymmetric class and the 49er, which was selected in 1996 as the high performance discipline for the Sydney Olympic Games in September next year.

There has previously been no asymmetric class at youth level as it is not a discipline at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships, the 420 effectively filling that gap as the sole doublehanded class.

However, with asymmetric sailing becoming increasingly popular in the UK and indeed world wide, with most of the main builders having two or three asymmetric classes in their range, the RYA have decided it should adopt an asymmetric design into its youth programme alongside the 420 (doublehanded), Laser (single-handed) and Hobie (multihull disciplines).