Sebastian Kempe was crowned the 2021 Youth Sailing World Championships ILCA6 Male Fleet Champion in Oman.
Kempe and the other Bermuda sailor Nicole Stovell who competed in the lLCA6 Female Fleet ignored by the print media for the first few days of the competition will now get recognition.
This went right down to the wire. José Gomes Saraiva Mendes from Portugal started the day with a bit of a points gap but the Portuguese sailor was back in 27th and unable to fight his way through. Meanwhile Luka Zabukovec from Slovakia hit the speed button on his Ziegelmeyer boat to take the lead of the race and move into a slender overall lead. However, down the final run Kempe used his downwind pace to overtake enough boats to cross the line in sixth place. Not that he knew at the time, but Kempe had done just enough to take a historic Gold for Bermuda, his small island nation’s first ever medal of any color at a Youth Worlds. Zabukovec finished tied on points with Mendes, the silver going on tiebreak to Slovenia, with Portugal in bronze.
The new gold medallist’s father, Somers Kempe, competed for Bermuda in the Youth Worlds almost 30 years earlier and was there to greet his son as he landed on the shore. Sebastian paid tribute to his dad for getting him into the sport. “I want to thank my dad and everyone back home who has supported me,” said Sebastian. ‘I’ve been working hard for this the past two years, extremely stressful trying to do the maths. A four way fight between me, Slovenia, Poland and Portugal. I had just had to get to sixth. I’m really, really happy that this day has finally come. It’s been fun to race against these great competitors. It’s been the best fun I’ve had in sailing, ever. I want to do it again in six months at The Hague. And in a few years I want to do an Olympic campaign.”
On day five in the lLCA6 Female Fleet Stovell came off the water in 32nd place in a Fleet of 46 sailors with 183 Net Points. Stovell finished the only race of the day with a ruling of On the Course Side (BFD).
