Welsh Sailing Stacks The Next Hannah Mills On Sustainable Future

By Graham Thomas

Young Welsh sailors might glide across the water without too much bother, but now they should be finding life on the road a bit easier, too.

Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Cymru have just taken possession of eight vehicle trailers that will allow them to ferry young sailors – and their dinghies – around the country far more smoothly.

It should make transport far easier for parents, with the youngsters now able to travel as a small group, and also allow much more regional and even national activity rather than limiting promising young sailors to their local clubs.

There is also a big gain in sustainability, with the miles travelled by individual sailors greatly reduced as they can now team up and stack up to three boats on one trailer.

There are currently around 70 youth and junior sailors participating in sailing performance programmes across Wales – all bidding to be the next Hannah Mills or Chris Grube.

That means around 70,000 miles are travelled in total for sailors getting to and from regional and national training and events.

The stackable trailers will now mean more car sharing, fewer journeys, and overall miles on the road reduced by around one third.

“A big part of our strategy is to be more sustainable and these trailers will enable us to do that,” says RYA Cymru performance manager Sarah McGovern.

“The more we can get sailors sharing lifts and sharing their loads, it will help reduce the overall number of miles we are clocking up.

“We are such a green sport in terms of what we do. After all, we use wind as our fuel to power the boats.

“But things like the trailers help us to become more sustainable. We have two national events a year in Wales which sailors are travelling to and a lot of them are in GB squad programmes as well, so they are continuously traveling to the south coast of England.”

We’re looking forward to the @RYA @DinghyShow in Farnborough this weekend. RYA Club of the Year Award 2023 will be announced on Saturday; Good luck to Gresford Sailing Club! RYACW Chair Sian Reynolds will be there, so please introduce yourself/ say hi, if you see her! #sailing pic.twitter.com/z2rFvjaWzp

— RYA Cymru Wales (@RYACymruWales) February 23, 2023