Ready for inaugural Star Junior Worlds

Published on February 3rd, 2019

The first ever Star Junior World Championship, for skippers 30 and under, has 36 teams entered to compete February 4-6 on Biscayne Bay in Miami, FL. Fifteen nations are represented, and while there is an age limit on the skipper, there are no restrictions on crew which has allowed for many with significant history in the class.

Frithjof Kleen (GER), Star World Champion who attended the London Olympics in 2012 and won the SSL Finals 2017, is sailing with young Italian Laser Radial World Champion Guido Gallinaro (ITA); Brian Fatih (USA), who finished 7th at the Games in Weymouth and won with Mark Mendelblatt (USA) the SSL Finals twice, will crewing in Miami for British Laser sailor Lorenzo Chiavarini (GBR); Star World Champion Samuel Gonçalves (BRA) is crewing for Nick Grael (BRA); and Austin Sperry (USA), 11th at Bejing Olympics, at the bow of American Laser sailor Charlie Buckingham.

All of them, and many more, experienced crew will sail with and support the young skippers, but some of the entries are not new to the class at all.

Like Daniel Cayard (USA), who was born among Star sailors with both his father, Paul, and his grandfather, Pelle Peterson (SWE), Star World Champions – his grandfather also won the Silver medal in Kiel in 1972 – or Robert O’Leary (IRL), normally crewing for his older brother Peter (twice at the Olympics for Ireland), will helm with Peter crewing, or American Joshua Revkin (USA), who won the Star Worlds in 2017 crewing for Eivind Melleby (NOR), will helm with Arthur Anosov (USA), and again Dutch skipper Thomas Allart (NED) sailing with Kilian Weise (GER) with whom he finished third at the Eastern European Championship in Trieste 2018.