Interview: William Harrison - Largs to Barcelona

Straight after the 2018 Youth Nationals recently held in Largs we spoke to sponsored sailor William Harrison.

Sailing Chandlery have supported William for a number of years through the Topper, 29er and now into the Nacra 15.

This was your second Youth Nationals, how did you prepare for this event? 

We have done a lot of training over the winter as part of the Nacra 15 youth squad, at both Weymouth and Plymouth as well as some independent sailing at Grafham. We also managed to get out on the Saturday and Sunday at LARGS before the racing started with coach Tom Walker.

What did you think of Largs as a venue, it’s obviously a long way from home.

Amazing place to sail, extremely scenic, but also extremely tricky due to the landscape, with complex wind coming from the land. Also extremely cold, most days we had wind chill of well below zero.

You managed to win Race 6 of the series, how did that feel? 

It felt amazing, given the tricky conditions on the Wednesday, we had a great start and managed to hold it for the race.

Can you tell us a little bit about the DNF later in the series, what happened? 

We had big winds on Friday and had a good position round the windward mark, with the boats all being very close, we had a huge wipeout  on the downwind leg, so hard that one of our boards fell out. This had to be retrieved by the support boat, so we could not claim a finish. 

Top piece of kit on your boat for the week? 

Having recent re-rigged the whole boat with Dyneema shockcord, this avoids any issues with lost bungee due to lost footings or capsizes. With the 2 heavy weather days it’s extremely important that the kit is as reliable as possible. 

Best bit of sailing clothing you used during the week?

Arabella and I rely heavily on the Zhik Superwarm range, this week was the first outing for my new super warm X which kept be warm even in the extreme conditions and the wind chill caused by the speeds we are travelling.

What’s the next event you’ll be taking part in? 

We only have 10 days at home before heading out to Barcelona for the Nacra 15 World Championships and Youth Olympics qualifier, there will be a 60 + boat fleet, we are looking forward to large fleet racing and some warmer weather. Our last international event was in Medemblik in the Netherlands and we are looking forward to competing hard against this competitive fleet again and helping team GBR qualify for the Youth Olympic games in October.

We will also have a few days with our coaches at the venue before the racing starts where we hope to have time to try out some of the new Marlow R8 rope.