The Youth World Championship is an incredible and unique event that only 4 US 29er sailors get to participate in each year. Through a series of qualifier events, the top mens and womens sailors in different classes age 18 or younger get to travel to represent their country. After years of training together, Sammie Gardner and I qualified with fellow SDYC sailors Ian and Noah Nyenhuis to attend the 2022 Youth World Championship in The Hague, the Netherlands. Here, all sailors stayed together in small 2 bedroom houses spread out across a large campground where each sailor was given a bicycle. From there we would make the daily 4+ mile commute to the venue. Although the sand dunes made the ride anything but flat, the beautiful view of the ocean surrounded by wildflowers made it more enjoyable. During the opening ceremony, 250 sailors from 50 countries took to their bikes for a 15 minute long “parade” of the city.
Youth worlds is structured similar to the Olympics with one female, and one male team from each country in 29ers, I420s, Nacra 15s, IQ Foils, kiteboarding, and lasers. From our pre-event research, we expected the conditions to be quite different than what we experience at home: windy, wavy, cold, and lots of strong current. By the first day of racing we started to doubt this prediction. For much of the 6 day event we saw less than 10 knots of wind with current up to 6 mph pushing us in all different directions. The strong current and light air made for tricky, long days with lots of general recalls. For the 29er and I420 class, the male and female teams share one boat and switch halfway through the day. Because of this, the rotations sometimes didn’t happen until 5 pm, and one day we didn’t race at all.
Overall, Sammie and I had a bit of a rollercoaster of a world championship. With a UFD in the first day, we were scared to be on the line and had to work past that in order to do well in such a competitive fleet. Going into the last day, we were tight on points and could have the opportunity to podium if we had an extremely good day. The first race we had an excellent start, were able to execute our game plan and go left, and finished 2nd overall. The second and final race did not go so smoothly. With a pack below us we started directly under the race committee boat and were forced to accelerate slightly early, causing our 2nd UFD of the event. With only one throw out for all 6 days, it unfortunately moved us down to 7th overall. Despite the disappointment we faced from the last race, we were still proud of what we had accomplished and grateful for all the people who made it possible for us to qualify for and compete in the 2022 Youth World Championships of sailing.