Four weeks ago Geelong’s Will Farnell was crowned Youth Sailor of the Year by Victoria’s peak ocean racing body. Matt Hewson caught up with Will to hear about his experiences on the water so far and his hopes for the future.
The ocean remains one of the few untamed environments on Earth; by turns serenely calm and wildly violent, full of mystery, romance and danger, the open water rewards preparation and discipline while punishing carelessness.
At 16 years of age, Geelong sailor Will Farnell has already learnt this lesson well.
Last month Will was named Ocean Racing Club Victoria’s (ORCV) 2025 Youth Sailor of the Year for his list of achievements many adult sailors would envy.
He has had something of a head start, surrounded by sailing his whole life.
His grandfather Harry Farnell is a former Commodore of the Royal Geelong Yacht Club, his father Jason has sailed since before Will was born and older sister Imogen also sails competitively.
For his part, Will has applied himself rigorously to the sport, sailing up to five times a week through the warmer months for years now.
He has also completed ORCV’s Foredeck Essentials course and worked for the last two years at his local sailing and marine parts shop.
But things can always turn for the worst on the water, no matter the skill of the sailor.
Two months ago Will participated in the Apollo Bay Race, sailing on the Valiant, his father Jason’s boat.
Having completed the race, they decided to turn and head straight for home to avoid the bad weather forecast for the following day.
Most of the voyage passed by without incident, but not long after they had passed the Port Phillip Heads their fortunes changed.
Winds of up to 45 knots were soon pummelling the Valiant as it flew north into the bay.
“This was in between Queenscliff and Portarlington, but we had the tide going with us so we couldn’t go slow enough,” Will said.
“If it’s wind against tide the waves stand up, so we were just getting launched off each wave. I was downstairs because I’d been up for most of the way back, so I was holding on and then there’d just be a big bang.
“Then I had to go up and drop the sails because it got too windy. We’ve got storm sails, but it got too windy for those.
“Then we had to try to find Portarlington but the GPS came unplugged; we thought it got wet and had stopped working. We ended up going inside the sandbar, so we had 40 centimetres of water under the boat.”
It was a situation most people would find stressful. But despite his age, Will, coming from generations of sailors, has logged more time offshore than many.
“I don’t want to do it again… but I don’t really get stressed on boats,” he said.
“I was just doing what I could to avoid anything bad happening, we were managing what we could.
“There’s no point panicking. We were going inside the sandbar and we couldn’t change that, so we just had to deal with it as it came.”
For Will, it was a calmness born of experience and the knowledge they had done everything right in the lead-up to that moment.
“When you do a race, you might be back in two days or even that day, but you spend weeks getting everything ready,” he said.
“You’ve got to get all the safety stuff, make sure the boat’s maintained, you’ve just got to have everything ready.
“That takes a long time, a lot longer than the race. You’ll spend more time getting the boat ready than on the water.”
In 2017, at the tender age of eight, Will began dinghy sailing, but two years later he began sailing keelboats.
He has competed extensively in the smaller vessels, heading to Poland when he was 10 for the international Cadet World Championships as a crew, then again in England last year as a skipper, finishing in 15th place.
His offshore experience is also considerable, having sailed to Sydney twice, from Hobart to Melbourne once, crewed for a race during the Festival of Sails and competed in ORCV’s Apollo Bay Race three times.
His first Apollo Bay Race, when he was 14, was his first ever ocean competition.
The event takes around 10 hours, and Will spent “most of the time on the floor, just lying down” as he fell seasick for the first and only time in his life.
The experience, obviously, did not deter him.
Sailing has both shaped Will’s life and taught him about himself.
“It’s what I enjoy doing, and that’s what everything’s based around, I guess,” he said.
“I think I’m pretty organised compared to some other people. (As a sailor) you’ve got to manage time, plan for what’s going to happen and make sure everything’s ready to go, because once you’re out there you can’t change anything, it’s just got to happen.
“And I have lots of routine as well. I get up before six and do school work in the morning normally, because then after school I can go sailing.
“As soon as it’s daylight savings it’s five days a week… I’ll be doing Tuesday, Wednesday, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”
Will is not plotting out his future just yet, but hopes to pursue sailing at the elite level as an adult.
“I don’t know if I’m into the Olympics as much, but I’d like to do professional sailing,” he said.
“There are heaps of regattas in Europe and around the Mediterranean; on the keelboats you get on for the day, crew, then you get flown to the next regatta. I think that would be good to do.
“To be honest, I’ve got no idea what I want to do as a career, but with sailing I reckon one day I’d want to sail around the world. Like, just do a full lap and go everywhere.”
