Two young local sailors have been recognised for their achievements at the Victorian Sport Awards.
Josh Garner, 16, and Jack Benyan, 14, were named the Young Team of the Year last week after dominating the International Cadet Class in 2024.
The pair won the 2024 Victorian and national championships before heading to Plymouth in the UK to claim the world championships with a race to spare.
The string of wins came after Josh missed out on making the Australian team by a single point after being penalised for crossing the starting line early in the final qualifying event.
“It was a careless mistake, not being aware of the situation I was in,” Josh said.
“I felt I had the ability, but I just let myself down a little bit. So, I trained as much as I could, working as hard as I could to make the team the next year.”
The results speak for themselves.
For Jack, last year was his very first year of competitive sailing. While Josh is now working toward the national championships in January in a new class with a new partner, Jack has now taken over as skipper of Ringo, the boat the boys won the world championships in.
Jack credited Josh as a great influence on his sailing, saying he learnt “pretty much 90 per cent of all my tactics and strategy… all the little one per centers that help make you just go that little bit faster” from his former skipper.
“(Being skipper) is pretty different, but it’s the same sort of concept,” Jack said.
“It’s just figuring out how you can do everything just that little bit better.”
