Ahzai Smith At Bermuda Nationals

With the 2016 Bermuda National Optimist Championships having come to a close this weekend, the highlight has been on Ahzai Smith, who has had an incredible run in this regatta. Indeed, the sailing honors that he has gathered have been immense.

Last month this twelve years old was able to showcase his skills at the RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup. He stood in the seventh position where there had been a total of 41 competitors. At the Bermuda event that took place now he again emerged as the best competitor where there were about 70 sailors who competed.

However, this 12 year old has a bright future ahead and he is not ready to give up now – indeed, he is only just back from a sailing training camp in Lavrio. He will see himself sailing for the America’s Cup soon in the future. He also hopes to be skipper of the Bermuda team, which will provide the best spectacle in sailing in the world. The Junior Gold Cup will provide the best experience for him and it proved to be so. The wind conditions were also favorable which heightened his confidence. There was a mixture of luck as well as skill requirement that helped him to emerge victorious in the Bermuda Opti Championships. Ahzai admitted that he loved the fact that sailing was all about meeting different people who came from different parts of the world.

Ahzai has been living in Sandys and he started to learn sailing from the age of nine. He had signed up for the spring sailing program of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. He studies at the Warwick Academy and is also a cyclist along with being a sailor, which he feels he is a natural at. The skills that he has developed are considerably as he has been training for about two and a half years. He remembers when he was introduced to sailing by Tom Herbert-Evans for the first time, which was scary but fun as well.