Day 4 of the 2018 Youth World Sailing Championships grew intense quickly on the coaches’ boat. With many different languages shouting out suggestions and encouragement, the stakes were obviously high on the second to last day of racing.
"Now we are very near, very close to know who is going to win the event," Argentina sailing coach, Hirna Vila told KZTV.
A boat with 18 sailing coaches from around the world (ISR, GRE, HKG, ARG, CRO, POL, BEL, RUS, KOR, GBR, NZL, TUR, FRA, MEX, ITA, JPN, NOR, BRA) remained anchored close to the RS:X race route. Young athletes made rounds before and after races to drop off and pick up gear consisting most of water and food.
"We tell them to have a proper warm up, to look for wind directions, and to make a strategy for their races and obviously to have fun" Norway sailing coach, Martha Eide said.
Fun is one way you could describe the RS:X style of sailboat, but fast is more accurate. Netherlands sailing coach, Casper Bouman, competed and won this exact event 12 years ago.
"For myself I started in this youth class as well just when this board went to the Olympics, I was the first from my country to become world champion," Bouman said.
There is a tremendous amount of experience on a coaches boat and they all seemed to appreciate the Corpus Christi weather.
"Conditions here are absolutely lovely, wind is very stable ..it’s an amazing place for sailing," Hirna Vila added.
With limited time between races, one common goal is to keep the athletes hydrated.
"It’s mostly water with energy powder in them, Gatorade and all of that stuff. then we have gels, bars and food so that they can some food between the races," Eide told KZTV.
The athleticism and stamina shown by the competitors is insane; they all boast lean body types.
Competitors with yellow dots on their boat are in first, blue means second, and red is third. First place gets 1 point, second gets 2 points and so on; the worst score is dropped and at the end of the week, the athlete with the least amount of points wins gold.
