Young sailors from Antigua and Barbuda, first time skipper, Joshua Daniels and Jules Mitchell walked away with top honours as Daniels was named the first Youth to Keel (Y2K) Ambassador, whilst Mitchell, captain of the all Antiguan crew on the National Sailing Academy (NSA) Cork 1720 Spirit won the Henley trophy as winners of CSA 6 class. Both were presented with their trophies at the grand prize giving finale event on Friday, May 03.
Daniels, who captained the second all Antiguan crew on NSA Cork 1720 Valiant was delighted with his award: “I feel really ecstatic to win something and to be noticed for doing something I love. The purpose of sailing this year was to try to do our best in order to be recognised as young grass roots sailors. We had a lot of challenging moments this week, like when our mast came down. That was disappointing because we were winning for once, but we came together as a team and we kept going. Hopefully we will come back stronger next year.”
Both NSA crews are aged under 20 and products of the NSA and Antigua Yacht Club (AYC) young sailors programme. Valaint, unfortunately was unable to finish their races due to a broken mast. Spirt also faced challenges when their rudder broke. However, Valiant’s rudder was placed on Spirt who went onto win their last race, which gave them six bullets to win the class and lift the Henley Trophy.
“This is my sixth Antigua Sailing Week and the third as skipper of Spirit,” commented Mitchell. He added that: “It’s been awesome, Antigua came good with amazing trade winds and the excellent organisation to capitalize on that. Big respect to NSA Valiant and the team for lending us their rudder when ours broke.”
The Y2K programme is in its second year and in 2018 25 young sailors participated and this year over 40 were placed on racing yachts for the week. Alison Sly-Adams, ASW President and Commercial Director said that the feedback has been tremendous” We have to thank our 2019 sponsors, KPMG, the captains and crews for the amazing opportunity they have given our young sailors, we know they learnt a lot. The impact of this programme on the lives of the young sailors is priceless and we must recognise the tremendous work being done by the coaches at the NSA and. The day after the regatta ended, many of the youngsters were back on the water.”
Dockyard Day celebrations started with the prize giving ceremony for the ASW Harper’s Schools Art Competition winners. Miss Ethlyn Phillip, ASW School Arts coordinator and Yuri Christian, Sales Manager, Harper’s Office Depot were on hand to present the winners with their certificates and prizes from prize sponsors – Harper’s, Goldsmitty, Antigua Rain Forest, Stingray City, Antigua Adventures, Sailors of the Sea and ASW SWAT bags. (prize list). The over all winner is Tiffany Dunnah of Christ the King High School and her design (picture) will be the ASW 2020 Welcome poster at Cobbs Cross corner.
The 52nd ASW came to close with the world famous beating of the retreat by the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda.
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
