Olivia and Alexandra Young – Parents Report International Cadet World Championships 2025

We had an incredible and very busy 3 weeks.  The girls were part of the Australian International Cadet Team which comprised of 10 teams (20 kids) ranging in age from 7 to 17 years. 

The girls were selected based on their performance at the 2025 National Championships and found out they had made the team in January 2025.  As the only South Australian Team, as well as sailing locally they needed to travel a bit to train with the team including for Victorian state titles held in Sandringham in March, a training camp in Geelong during the April school holidays and training camp in Hobart during the June long weekend. 

Although many of the teams travelled to Europe in early July, Olivia was part of the Immanuel Sailing Team and competed at the team sailing nationals in Goolwa in July so after 1 night back at home, we left on 22 July.

We arrived in Cerna v Posumavi, a small town of about 900 residents on Lake Lipno in the Czech Republic on 23 July for our 17 night stay. 

First priority on arriving was to unload the Australian Team's boats from a shipping container, getting the boats rigged and ready for the Australian Team's training camp which ran from 24 July until the Worlds commenced.  Although it was allegedly summer, conditions were quite cool with a lot of rain and very different sailing conditions to what the girls were used to (no waves, no tide, no seabreeze).  

The Australian Team set up a "paddock" with a team tent for briefings (and sheltering from the rain) complete with a very large Australian flag and inflatable boxing kangaroos.  

Lots of long days of training with the girls on the water for between 4-6 hours each day.  

Our "rest day" on 1 August turned into a day of practice racing against the German, British, Czech and Ukraine teams, so not a lot of time for exploring.

Measurement day on 2 August to check all boats are the same / class compliant involved a lot of standing around and last minute jobs to ensure compliance but the team did a great job.  The kids have to manage the measurement process themselves with just their coaches so a bit daunting for some of the younger ones.  

Racing ran from 3 - 9 August.  Again, the "rest day" was cancelled as the officials determined that it was needed for racing!

Girls did really well finishing 44th out of 79 in the worlds fleet.  Including the promotional fleet, there were 104 cadets in competing so a huge fleet in comparison to what the girls were used to.  Some very long days on the water, including one where they got back to shore after 8pm.

The girls has some great results with a 14th and a 17th but it was a steep learning curve for them.  We hadn't appreciated that many of the kids in the Australian Team had competed at worlds before and the 5 teams from Geelong and 4 from Sandy Bay have all been sailing / training with each other a lot so the girls did struggle with a lack of big fleet experience and no local training partner.

Overall, the Australian Team had some great results with 4 in the top 10 (3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th) and 8 in the top 20 (11th, 12th, 18th, 19th).

An amazing experience and lovely to see the girls making new friendships with the teams from the Netherlands and UK.

Thank you to all who have supported us on our journey and we look forward to more sailing adventures in the future. Please do ask the girls for their own stories when you see them at the Club.