The 2010 under-20 winner, James French of Gurnard SC, is the 2011 under-25 Youth Match Racing Champion helm.
With very different conditions from their 2010 win, James French and Robert Southwell, with Bradley McNaughlin. beat Tom Phipps (Plymouth Uni), Kelvin Matthews (Plymouth) & Mark Yeabsley (Plymouth) at the RYA Youth MR Championship at WPNSA yesterday.
Mark Lees, Toby Yeabsley (Bath) & Peter Austin had led the field in the round robin from Kate MacGregor (Solent), Piers Strong (Plymouth) & Sophie Pearson (Solent). But, with the wind dying, the French and Phipps teams won their respective semis to take the top podium slots.
Final line-up
1 James French, Robert Southwell. Bradley McNaughlin
2 Tom Phipps (Plymouth), Kelvin Matthews (Plymouth), Mark Yeabsley (Plymouth)
3 Mark Lees, Toby Yeabsley (Bath), Peter Austin
4 Kate MacGregor (Solent), Piers Strong (Plymouth), Sophie Pearson (Solent)
5 Stevie Tiernan (Southampton), Ed Dyer (Southampton), Tim Goodhew (Southampton)
6 Toby Mumford (Southampton), George Thompson (Southampton), Roddy Lacy
7 Arthur Romano (Cambridge), Eddie Romano, Ben Gratton (Oxford)
Attached RYA Press Report includes photo of podium line-up: Mark Yeabsley/Tom Phipps/Kelvin Matthews – Rob Southwell/James French/Bradley McNaughlin – Toby Yeabsley/Mark Lees/ Peter Austin (Credit: Jessica Beecher). See RYA Press Report