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Photo credit: Jack Ferguson Sailing

RSYS Member Jack Ferguson has achieved outstanding results at the 2023 49er Junior World Championships, taking out the winning title with Jack Hildebrande in Travemunder, Germany, over the weekend.

Jack writes, "We only started sailing together three months ago, and after placing 13th at the Allianz Regatta in May, we knew we had some work to do.

With some new gear on board and the guidance of our last-minute coach Marc Chapon, we were feeling confident in the pre-regatta training.

The qualifying series was what set us up to have a great chance at being at the top of the leader board. We sailed very consistently, with all scores inside the top 4 bar a 7th, which was our drop going into the finals series.


Photo credit: John Hildebrand / Source: MySailing

Unfortunately, we were over 2 minutes late to the start of our first race in the finals! This threw a huge spanner in the works. From here, we had to regather our heads and adjust heavily to the new circumstances as we now had a huge score as our drop.

The entire finals series was sailed in a shifty 3-6 knots which made it extremely tough to put down low consistent scores.

It all came down to the last race where we had a 4-point lead over the Maltese in second place. After nailing the start, we mirrored our closest competition from in front and finished well clear to take the championship.

We’re extremely proud of our result, especially myself, to come back and win after a slightly disappointing second place last year in Lake Como.

We are currently in Oostende, Belgium, for some training ahead of the 49er World Championships in The Hague." 

We wish Jack the best of luck at the Open World Championship in one week from 8 - 20 August, 2023.