Great Lakes Sailing Club junior members will be competing in the 52nd annual combined high school sailing regatta at Belmont 16ft Sailing Club from the April 17-21.
Lilly Smith, Tom Farley and Emily de Berg will compete in the laser class, with Emily and Tom competing in the smaller 4.7 rig ans Lilly will continue her campaign in the radial class.
All three sailors are graduates of the Great Lakes sailing junior sail training academy and are regular sailors at Great Lakes Sailing Club.
Recently, the young sailors have been working with youth development coach, Bill Stokes who invested many hours with the young sailors throughout this season.
The CHS regatta is open to high school students from all over Australia and attracts a wide variety of boats to the event.
With well over 100 boats looking to line up on the start line it will be a unique big fleet sailing experience for the three sailors.
For Emily de Berg this will be her first major regatta outside of the Great Lakes Sailing Club.
Lilly Smith and Tom Farley are old hands at major regattas, having recently competed in the NSW/ACT Laser State Titles.
This will be the second time Tom Farley has competed in the CHS regatta and he will be looking to improve on last year’s performance of third in the laser 4.7 division.
“Belmont is one of the great areas to sail in and The CHS regatta is a really fun and challenging sailing event that every sailor should do before they finish high school,” Tom said.
“I have really focused on my training this season and I am looking forward to seeing how it all comes together this year at CHS.”
Bill Stokes, who has been training Lilly, Emily and Tom in preparation for the regatta was impressed with how the young sailors have improved this season.
“Every week these three come down and learn something new whilst enjoying some time on the water, and that is what sailing is all about,” he said.
“I am a little concerned that they might be beating our senior sailors around the course before too long.”
Emily was excited to be taking part in the CHS regatta as her first major regatta.
“Both of my parents competed in CHS when they were in high school so it is really exciting that this will be my first major regatta,” she said.
Lilly and Emily will represent St Clare’s High School and Tom will represent Great Lakes College, Forster.
