News - 2013

11:50 Wednesday 7 Aug 2013 Sue Pelling/CWLExpanding youth at Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week

Aberdeen Asset Management’s youth scheme, which was introduced in 2012 proved so successful that it was expanded for this year's regatta.

The first 15 teams of crews under the age of 25 that entered this year's regatta received free entry and crew kit courtesy of Aberdeen Asset Management.

A total of 23 teams from a range of different classes are competing for the Aberdeen Asset Management Under 25 Trophy and standard of racing  is extremely high.

Currently leading the event with three wins in the super hot J/80 fleet is Chris Taylor and his young team of dinghy sailors, all under 21, from Hayling Island.

This team, which has really shown some professional form this week say they are looking forward to improve on the overall fourth place in class from two years ago.

In the breezy conditions on the first day this year, they used their dinghy racing skills to launch an assault on the fleet, and repeated their performance the following day. Taylor commented “We sail well as a team in the breeze, so we were happy with our results on the first two days.

It will be interesting to see if Team J.A.T can perform as well in today’s lighter wind. They are currently ahead of Team Curlew in a Swallow (Fiona Hampshire, Arthur Henderson and Honor Fell).

The Young Skipper’s Trophy awarded to the skipper aged under 25 on 10 August who achieves the best results over the entire week, is also popular. Once again, it is Taylor in the J/80 who is currently leading this fleet too. However, the points gap is slightly closer in this fleet with Alistair Barter crewed by Ed Suckling in Bertie the Sonar just over five points behind.