Richard Bone - Sailing

Hi my name is Richard Bone, I have been sailing since I was 4, and competing internationally since 2000.

I started my competitive sailing in Opi's, Toppers, Laser's and 420's until I found the 29er. I started racing the 29er locally in the South East and finished 2nd at the Youth Regional Championships. Following this we quickly booked our flights to head out the the first ever 29er World Championships in Lake Garda, Italy finishing in the top 50.

I continued for another season, and finished 26th (1st in the Silver Fleet) at the 2001 Worlds in Canada, before deciding it was time to move onto the 49er.

At this I teamed up with Chris Rodway and have been sailing together ever since. We bought our first 49er in 2003 and have not looked back since, and started competing in all the UK National Ranking events, and European Olympic Regatta's. Having one a UK Ranker and winning the 49er Inland Championships we started focusing towards the 2008 Olympics.

This focused our attentions and we qualified for ISAF World Sailing Games in Austria, in 2006 finishing in the top 20 after two weeks of racing.

We followed this up with a number of top finished and qualified for the World Championships in Portugal, to be one of the 8 GBR 49ers competing. We had a good regatta, but a slightly disappointing 49th overall.

Our last 49er Worlds that we have entered was in 2009 out in Lake Garda where we sailed on the New Caron Big rig and finished 42nd overall, which we were really pleased with, considering Chris has been out of action with Injury for about 6months.

I like to sail all boats and will regularly jump in and helm an RS 400 around, were I have finished 3rd overall at two EuroCup events held in Lake Garda, the latest being the 2010 Eurcup.

The plan is to try and jump into an I14 for the Worlds in Weymouth and see if we can put in a good solid result.

Lets see how things go and will keep you posted on our results.

Happy Sailing

Richard