A bright future

Young sailors performed brilliantly last year in doublehanded racing

Kate Cope, director of the UK Doublehanded Series, reflects on last year’s achievements…

Last year was a particularly successful one for the younger sailors in the UK Doublehanded (DH) Series. I often hear that the growth of DH gives fewer opportunities for youngsters but the reality in the UK is very different. We had 22 sailors under 25 years old racing with us in 2024. The partnership of older boat owners and younger co-skippers is a winning mix with each bringing different skills to the boat. There are also opportunities on established boats, with many offshore races in the season there are often calendar clashes. We run a DH crew match with a personal touch to match the right sailors to these opportunities.

Top of the pile of celebrations has to be Cal Finlayson and Maggie Adamson who squeezed past two very well-sailed French boats to clinch the DH World title by 65 seconds. Both have been regulars in the UK DH series, sailing against each other for the past three years on different Sun Fast 3600s. Unbelievably the DH Worlds was only their fourth race together as a pair.

Cal started offshore racing with a season on a fully crewed boat. The boat had successful results although he confesses that, as only one part of the team, he struggled to really own the results. Cal was one of our very first crew matches when he partnered up with Nick Martin (Diablo) for the 2021 season.

Maggie’s DH career started during Covid. The RYA set up an initiative aimed at the 2024 Olympics but with lockdown it ended up as online training. Maggie’s home location of Shetland was no longer a barrier to gaining experience and connections. She came down south to do one race on Gavin Howe’s Sun Fast 3600 Tigris and only went home when the racing season was over.

Maggie and Cal are now planning for the Transat Paprec, a mixed DH Transatlantic from Concarneau to St Barts in Figaro 3s, under the banner of Solan Ocean Racing.

Another great youth achievement was Josh Dawson and Ollie Hill winning the DH class in the RORC Cowes-St Malo race on Zephyr (Sun Fast 3300) and coming second overall in IRC. This race had brutal conditions with 40kt gusts against spring tides at Casquets kicking up massive seas. They battled through the waves, hoisting the spinnaker at Casquets and flew past a lot of seasoned competitors.

Zephyr had been kindly lent to them by the owner, Simon Toms and this is another trend increasing year on year. In the past two years 10 different boats have been loaned to two youngsters, some for the whole season, when the owner was otherwise busy. A big thanks to the owners of Diablo, Black Betty, Asgard, Tigris, Zephyr, Rock Lobster, Orbit, Surf, Wavetrain and Chilli Pepper.

Josh’s first taste of offshore was fully crewed on Mark Emerson’s Phosphorus which has introduced a lot of youngsters to offshore sailing. Josh gained DH experience on the Young Tigris programme run by Gavin Howe. In this scheme under 25-yearold mixed pairs are loaned a boat to race offshore – look out for them racing on Wavetrain (Channel 32).

Both Josh and Ollie got into DH sailing after being introduced to Simon Toms via a coach. Josh has been the primary DH co-skipper of Zephyr since 2022.

Another success in the RORC St Malo Race was mixed pairing Willow Bland and Zeb Fellows who came third in DH, sailing on Rock Lobster (Sun Fast 3300) kindly loaned by the owner. Zeb at the tender age of 17 is more often with his father on Orbit, their Sun Fast 3300. Notable results were fourth overall in the ISC Round the Island Race, third in the DH Nationals and winning the Youth Trophy in the 2025 UK DH Series. He has a bright future ahead of him in shorthanded racing, he scored a bullet in his first solo race!

Sailing with dad is a winning path as Ellie Driver has shown. She tells me the idea of offshore racing was very much her father’s when they bought Chilli Pepper (Sun Fast 3300), but Ellie soon took over and together they’ve had great results. Ellie has now stepped up into Figaro 3 racing in France. Her first race was Lé Defi Paprec 2024 where she came second. She is now partnered with Ollie Hill and they’re also aiming for the 2025 Transat Paprec. The future looks bright in UK Doublehanded sailing.

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