The first ever sailing team to represent the Sultanate of Oman at the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships has arrived in Dublin, Ireland, for a week of racing that will not only pit them against the best young sailors from around the globe but more importantly provide a fun highly competitive environment in which to improve their skills and hone expertise. The first ever sailing team to represent the Sultanate of Oman at the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships has arrived in Dublin, Ireland, for a week of racing that will not only pit them against the best young sailors from around the globe but more importantly provide a fun highly competitive environment in which to improve their skills and hone expertise. Eighteen year old skipper Mohammed Al Wahaibi and his crew Marwan Al Jabri will compete in the multihull SL16 catamaran class as the sole two-man Omani team at the 2012 Four Star Pizza ISAF Youth Worlds when racing gets underway from 14 July through to 20 July. The annual event, which has attracted a total of four hundred sailors aged between16 and 19 years old from 60 nations across six continents, will be contested in five different dinghy classes which also include the Laser Radial, 420, RS:X and 29er. Both new to sailing, Al Wahaibi and Al Jabri, are fully aware of the steep learning curve they are on. Their only previous exposure to top end international competition was at the SL16 World Championships in France recently and they are eager to build on what they learnt there. In Dublin Bay this week they will compete in a crack fleet of 15 teams, eight of whom they have already come up against at the World Championships in France. On the start line will be five of the six medallists from the 2011 ISAF Youth Worlds, among them current world champions Rupert White and Tom Britz from Great Britain and the 2011 ISAF Youth Worlds Champions Martin Lowy and Kim Andrade from Brazil. The SL 16 catamaran is a smaller version of the Nacra 17, the multihull selected for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and therefore a sought after class for those with Olympic aspirations. Oman Sail's director of sailing development, Neil Coxon, says the Omani team's participation at this year's Youth Worlds is for experience alone. There is no pressure or expectation in terms of results. “The main objective is for them to get a taste of a high profile international racing event, to meet other sailors, coaches and race officials and to get an understanding of what top level racing looks and feels like. “They will be interacting with people from different countries and exposed to different cultures and we hope it will motivate them to keep trying hard to become better sailors. Last, but certainly not least, we believe their participation will help raise the standard and aspirations of the entire Oman youth team as word of their experience spreads," said Coxon. The young sailors, Al Wahaibi from Al Bustan near Muscat, and Al Jabri from Haramel, became hooked on sailing after taking part in sail training with Oman Sail. They soon adopted it as their sport and started sailing weekly in the Oman Sail legacy club. In January this year they were among a group of sailors selected for a youth multihull racing team and started training with Oman Sail youth sailing co-ordinator, Said Al Arami. A month later they took part in the Gulf Regatta in Qatar, followed by Oman's Mussanah Race Week in March when they finished a credible 4th. The two sailors continued training with Al Arami and more recently with Akram Al Wahaibi, a former multihull race team member who made the move to coaching. They were selected to represent Oman at the 2012 Four Star Pizza ISAF Youth Worlds after a further series of selection training camps in Mussanah, Oman. Coach Al Wahaibi is with the team in Dublin along with Paul Wakelin, senior team multihull coach for Oman Sail “This is the first time an Omani team has entered the ISAF Youth Worlds and this time we are there for the experience. However our long term goal is to have teams in all the sailing disciplines competing at the event and to be protagonists both in terms of results and ethos," said Coxon. The ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship was launched in 1971 in Sweden and has taken place every year since then. Over 100 different nations have competed in the event which has been held in over 20 countries and in every continent. The last three championships were held in Brazil, Turkey and Croatia respectively. Fifteen of the sailors who won medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are past medallists at the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship. France is currently the most successful nation, winning the ISAF Nations Trophy on a record 10 occasions and holding a record 62 medals: 20 Gold, 27 Silver and 15 Bronze.
