Grants announced for Paralympic sailing

Laura Hodgetts

Support for 2.4mR international events

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The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) is inviting disabled sailors to apply for grants to  support 2.4mR one-person keelboat class campaigns.

The RYA, the UK national governing body for boating, has said it is committed to developing Paralympic sailing in the UK as well as supporting World Sailing’s ambition for sailing to be reinstated as part of the Paralympic games for 2024.

With the aim of increasing the quantity and quality of racing for sailors with disabilities, the RYA is working with a small number of clubs as a pilot this year to ensure sailors who wish to develop their skills can go racing.

The RYA’s focus in 2017 will be on the 2.4mR class, although clubs will be encouraged to support racing in all types of boat, to join with other sailing clubs and to draw on the RYA network of coaches and race officials.

Additionally, this season and as part of the one-year pilot, the RYA will support four International events, as identified by World Sailing as key to generating as many entries as possible from a wide range of nations.

The International Paralympic Committee will be looking at the sport to ensure it has a robust international competition programme, and the number of countries competing will be crucial to Paralympic Sailing’s reinstatement success.

The RYA will be offering sailors support for their campaigns, providing one or two travel grants per event to assist with the costs involved in the 2.4mR class to: Sailing World Cup Hyeres, France (April), Delta Lloyd Regatta, Holland (May), Para World Sailing Championships, Germany (June) and the Para Europeans, Poland (July).

Coaching support at each event will be provided at no additional cost to the successful applicants.

Sailors wishing to apply for Sailing World Cup Hyeres and Delta Lloyd Regatta grants will be required to submit an application by 23:59 on 5 March 2017. Selection for these grants will be based on merit of each application.

For all other event grants, the indicator series will include Queen Mary 2.4mR Open, 8-9 April with a deadline for applications of 23:59 on 9 April 2017.

Interested sailors should register via racing@rya.org.uk to receive full application details.