A total of 200 up and coming young British windsurfers will be competing for top honours at Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy at the Volvo RYA Youth Windsurfing Championship this weekend (15-16 September).

This championship has been going from strength to strength every year, last year saw 120 windsurfers competing, but an estimated 200 entries are expected at this year’s event. The classes that will be competing are Junior One Design, IMCO, Aloha and Formula, the race format will include long distance, course and saloon racing.

Several entries are looking to continue their promising seasons, one in particular is Bryony Shaw. Bryony recently competed at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship where she was positioned a very promising seventh. Other entries include Peter Bird who come an impressive fifth in the Junior Aloha Worlds and Robby Swift who was the runner up at the Youth Formula Windsurfing World Championships.

This event is one of the most prestigious of the year for young windsurfers in Britain and is part of the award-winning youth sailing programme that Volvo has been sponsoring for the past four years.

The Volvo RYA Windsurfing Championships take place only a week before the start of the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World). The Volvo Ocean is one of the toughest global races, where crews from all over the world battle against the world’s biggest seas. Former Norwegian Olympic Windsurfer, Knut Frostad will be skippering the Norwegian entry ‘Djuice Dragons’.

“The Windsurfing Youth champs has always been the premier national racing event for our young windsurfers and a great introduction to newcomers but the support of Volvo over the last three seasons has really given the fixture an exciting new dimension. You get the feeling the top racers want to win that little bit more and those out of the medals benefit from a real feel good factor.” Said Barry Edgington, National Windsurfing Coach at the RYA.

The RYA UKWA (UK Windsurfing Association) are holding the Masters Championships simultaneously, and around 50 adults are expected to join the young windsurfers at the academy.