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Team Great Britain is new to the Nord Stream Race this year, consisting of a mix of professional sailors and younger up-and-coming sailors who are building their name and status on the race course.

Skipper of Team GBR Adrian Stead assembled the crew for the Nord Stream Race, selecting his team carefully and choosing a number of emerging names in sailing. One such crew member is Louis Sinclair; Louis completed an Atlantic crossing with Adrian last year which took them from Tenerife to Virgin Gorda.

Born in New Zealand, Louis grew up and learned to sail in Antigua; he is currently ICAP Leopard’s full-time racing bowman, competing in events such as the RORC Caribbean 600, Antigua Sailing Week and Transatlantic races. Louis highlighted that “this will be the longest offshore race for some of the younger crew, but also many of the guys have sailed in transatlantic races a number of times, so they have a great deal of experience and incredible knowledge.”

Many of Team GBR also know each other from sailing together as youths and coming up through the ranks together. This is such with James French and Adam Lees who are part of the GBR Youth Challenge, a team who were striving to win the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup. James French is also the acting skipper here in Flensburg, before Adrian Stead arrives for the race start.

Since 2011 James has been helm of the British Keelboat Academy’s Farr 45 campaign on Kolga. As a result of this contribution, he was asked to join Team Aqua on the RC44 championship tour for events in Austria and Sweden. James commented; “This will be the first time I have sailed in the Baltic so I am looking forward to it; we undertook a night sail last night for additional training but sadly the wind wasn’t in our favour, we are hoping for more before the start on Monday.”

Adam Lees has been sailing since the age of 11 when he started campaigning dinghies in youth events around the country. Whilst at university he raced in several top UK based campaigns. In 2009 he joined the British Keelboat Academy and from 2010 Adam has been part of the Kolga program as bowman and then crew boss. The team had a number of good results and won the 2013 Vice Admirals Cup.

Simon Johnson is another youth sailor who is ready to get out there and sail; “It is all about the offshore race, the forecast for NSR is looking good, 25 – 30 knots, wind behind us for the first day or two so hopefully we get a long downwind stretch, then we will be reaching for a good chunk of it towards Saint-Petersburg. I think the weather will then be the challenge, with the cold.”

Simon has sailed as part of the RC44 campaign onboard a Russian boat; he has also sailed on 80ft and 90ft boats. Sailing onboard a Swan 60 however will be new to Simon; “This is the first time the majority of us here have sailed on the Swan 60, the boat is a nice mix of cruiser/racer, she is a heavy boat so we are sure she will do well in this offshore.”

Team GBR raced in the Nord Stream Inshore race on Friday 13th September, having “a lot of fun” in the process. The night sail and the inshore race have surely been great training for the crew, who will come together as a full crew for the first time on Monday, when they depart for the 800 nautical mile race across the Baltic Sea. On Sunday 15th, top British sailors Adrian Stead, Jules Salter and Simon Fisher will join their team as they make their final race preparations.

On a departing note, the guys had the most important factor to offshore racing on their minds; “We are just waiting for our food to arrive now – we won’t be leaving without that!”