It’s been a busy start to the year for Athena Pathway. With the Women’s and Youth Cup next year, the clock is ticking to get everything together to give Britain the best chance of defending the Youth Americas Cup win from 2017 and to attempt to win the first ever Women’s Americas Cup in Barcelona 2024.
We have been busy behind the scenes working on some exciting new partnerships to build the Athena Pathway into an organisation that can challenge for the Youth and Women’s Americas Cup respectively, but also really looking at the next generation of women and youth sailors in the UK and how we can help fast track them into a professional sailing career in fast foiling boats! More on these partnerships to come soon….
On the ground, there has been some ETF 26 activity with two camps taking place from Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy. With winter seeming to last well into March, the sailors and coaching team had a lot on to stay warm whilst blasting around Portland harbour at 30kts! We had a total of six days on the water across both camps with some extra days for rig up and de rig training. Eight sailors took part in the trials, including five female athletes and three youth males. These camps allowed us to get more sailors involved in the programme experiencing these boats, as well as giving us a chance to select sailors to represent Athena Pathway at the first two events of the ETF 26 race series coming up in April and May.
With an eye to the future and the Womens and Youth Americas Cup, we have chosen to send four incredible sailors to sail the first event in Ouest-France, France. Taking place between the 7th and 10th April. The squad will be announced later this week...
With very limited time in the ETF but an incredible work ethic, I’m excited to see how quickly they can get to grips with the boat and the highly competitive racing in this circuit.
Keep your eyes on the Athena Pathway social channels for more updates and opportunities to get involved! Follow the team on Instagram at @athenapathway if you haven't already.