Czech 29er sailors up to speed for 2015 ISAF Youth Worlds

Czech sailors Simon Marecek and Jan Svoboda have their 29er fully up to speed following their participation at the ISAF Youth Worlds Emerging Nations Program clinic in Balatonfured, Hungary.

The youngsters made up a small team of 29er sailors at the clinic earlier this year as they fine-tuned their preparations for the 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships to be held in Langkawi, Malaysia from 27 December to 3 January.

Marecek and Svoboda will be one of 32 teams sailing in the Boy’s 29er in Langkawi, so the competition will be high and in the build-up they received expert coaching from 29er specific coach Matt Thomas as Marecek explained, “The coaches [at the ENP] have a lot of experience and we try to hear and remember as much as we can.”

Svoboda chipped in, “I think he taught us a lot of things that we did not know before, so I think we moved up a lot in different ways.”

“Yeah, the boat is much faster than before,” Marecek said as he bounced back into the conversation, “Now we aren’t capsizing and the gybes, he helped us do gybes totally different and now we’re all go.

“The boat speed is different than before. We go much faster and don’t point too high. We made a lot of improvements.”

The pair, both 16, have been sailing together since they were young in the Optimist but a chance meeting gave them the opportunity to sail the 29er, “We were sailing Optimists and one day the guys from the Czech Federation said, ‘We’ve brought 29ers, ten boats’ and we said, ‘Yeah that might be good fun’ and we started sailing together,” said Svoboda. “He [Marecek] is very funny and the same type of crazy as me so we make the perfect team.

“Our goal is to sail a 49er in the future after we’ve got a little bit older and bigger. The great thing about the 49er is that it’s fast and fun.”

As for the short term goal at the 2015 ISAF Youth Worlds, Marecek concluded, “We want to race as well as we can and achieve good results. But in Malaysia there’s a sea and a lot of waves. In the Czech Republic we don’t have a sea and we’re only sailing on lakes.”

Svoboda finished up, “We want to be in the first half of the fleet, that’s our goal.” 

ISAF Youth Worlds

Langkawi, Malaysia is hosting the 45th edition of the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships from 27 December to 3 January 2016. More than 380 sailors from 80 sailing in more than 300 boats across nine disciplines will compete in Malaysia.

Website – www.isafyouthworlds.com/home.php