Ben Rules the World
During the summer holidays while most of us were relaxing a number of boys were travelling all over the World representing Great Britain.
One of these boys was Ben Gratton. Ben has travelled to Germany, Italy and ultimately Brazil representing Team GB at Sailing.
The highlight of the summer for Ben was the ISAF U18 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro. This event is comparable to an under 18 Olympic event with only one boat per country entered in each class. Ben with his helm Phil Sparks were racing in the 420 fleet. With 3 firsts, 3 seconds and a disqualification in one race it was all to play for in the final race of the event. To quote the RYA press release “Gold went to Ben Gratton and Phil Sparks in the Boy’s 420 – the 16 year old pair holding their nerve to seal an awesome victory on their ISAF debut."
With a total of 4 firsts and 3 seconds to count, Ben and his helm won with 20 points between them and the silver boat.
To put Ben’s victory into perspective, the previous best result in this class was the British pair who won Silver in the 1997 ISAF Youth Worlds and then Silver at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.