Tom Storey a pupil at St Olave’s school in York and a member of Ripon Sailing Club is the new RS Tera Sport world champion.
The RS Tera class is a single handed racing dinghy designed for children and teens and is a large international class of dinghy used extensively in sailing schools and clubs. The boat has two versions, the RS Tera Sport for sailors up to 16 years of age & the RS Tera Pro which has a more powerful sail open to children under 18. Both are designed so that youngsters can rig, launch and recover the boat by themselves and it’s light weight makes for exciting sailing and a brilliant introduction to competitive dinghy racing.
107 young sailors from around the world arrived in Bruinisse in Holland for the 2015 RS Tera World Championships to compete in the week long event. After 9 challenging races in varying conditions it was Tom Storey who came out on top to take the impressive trophy and the world title. The secret to Tom’s success was consistency throughout the week with two outright wins amongst several second places and crucially a couple of wins over the second place finisher. In the end it was three British youngsters on the podium. At 12 years old Tom has a very bright future ahead of him having proved his ability against many older sailors.
Ripon Sailing Club had a strong entry in both the Sport and Pro class with several other notable local finishers; Jamie Rastrick finished a solid 7th, Ollie Kent 8th and Ellie Clark came in 31st place. In the Pro fleet Henry Rastrick finished a brilliant 4th, just missing out on a podium place by a single point.
Ripon Sailing Club is a family friendly club based just outside Knaresborough on Farnham lake, the club is an RYA accredited sailing school and teaches all abilities from total novice to experienced sailors ranging in age from 7 to 70!
Tom will have the chance to defend his title at Club de Vela Santoña in Northern Spainnext year and before then there are many other races he’ll be competing on around the UK. So, a name to look out for in future professional sport? Maybe we’ll see an adult Tom taking over from Ben Ainslie in the Americas cup?
