Mike Wood
Mike Wood, now aged 15, began sailing in the Saturday morning ‘kids club’ under the instruction of Colin Magee at Bosworth Water Trust in Leicestershire. He has been sailing competitively since 2004 when he was selected for the RYA Topper West Zone Squad under Head Coach Neil Marsden.
The following year he was selected for the RYA Great Britain National Junior Squad – Topper Class, after competing successfully against more than 80 other applicants for just 24 places in the necessary qualifying events.
Membership of the National Squad entailed training weekends and a week training camp at venues across the country throughout the winter period with excellent coaches, some of whom are on the Olympic Program.
In June 2006 Michael won the Topper Nationwide Travelers regatta at Abersoch against 150 boats over 2 days.
In July ‘06 he competed in the Topper World Championships at the prestigious venue of Lake Garda in Italy. After a tense competition with more than 160 entries representing more than 10 countries, over 5 days Michael came third in the Gold Fleet Regatta, achieving a podium finish and winning the bronze medal, and confirming his status as third in the world in this very competitive class!
Michael was chosen to represent Great Britain at the Irish National Championships in County Wexford where he narrowly missed out on first place on just one discard, finally finishing in third place overall.
In October ‘06 he was selected for the Topper National squad for the second year running.
Michael’s ambition is to represent Team Great Britain at International Sailing Regattas (an ambition he achieved by being selected to represent Team GBR at the Irish National Championships in August ‘06) and his ultimate goal is selection for The ISAF youth championships in the 29er in 2008 and Olympics in 2012 - but he is realistic and knows how hard it will be.
However he is on the RYA pathway and is progressing well, having gone through the West Zone Squad, National Junior Squad and been invited to IT Training camps by RYA Junior Racing Manager Duncan Truswell.
The next step on this pyramid is to change classes into an RYA recognized Youth boat and to this end Michael has been helming 29ers since Christmas ’06 as well as competing his Topper. This boat is ‘smaller brother’ of the 49er, which is the Olympic class boat.
At the RYA Youth Championships at Hayling Island Mike came 14th winning the prize for the first boat, which had not received any RYA Training. Which led to him being invited to train with the National Youth Squad at Weymouth.
In May 2007 at the Topper Inland Championships Mike came second out of 300 boats by just one point. This was to be his penultimate Topper event, as the RYA asked him to sail the 29er with experienced crew Peter Perera, and together they set out an ambitious campaign in this boat which would take them to a second place in The German Youth Championships at Flensburg followed by a creditable 20th place at the 29er European Championships in Sweden and then back to Llandudno for the 29er Nationals.
Mike traveled from Llandudno straight after racing had finished on the Friday evening and slept at Stansted airport before getting an early flight and arriving at Lake Garda on the Saturday afternoon for the Topper World Championships. After 5 days of tight competition in challenging conditions Mike was confirmed as Topper World Champion 2007.
After a crew split in the 29er, Mike is now sailing with Ollie Spensley-Corfield. Mike and Ollie are in the 29er youth squad and Taylored Support group.
Michael has been helping young sailors in the Leicestershire area at the Mayors Trophy Series since it was founded and at the regattas he acts as P.R.O. (Principle Race Officer), setting courses and giving briefings.
Michael is a qualified RYA Assistant Instructor and holds a powerboat license, and he coaches other local young sailors whenever his sailing commitments allow. He has also been coaching the LRYSA team that competed at the NSSA Regatta in Plymouth..