Nick Craig named as Yachtsman of the Year 11 Jan 2012

Five times Endeavour Championship winner Nick Craig has won the coveted title of Yachting Journalists’ Association Pantaenius Yachtsman of the Year for 2011, beating off competition from none other than Ben Ainslie CBE and Dee Caffari MBE.

The announcement was made yesterday at an awards ceremony held at Trinity House, London and the trophy was presented by last year’s winner, Geoff Holt MBE.

Nick’s achievements for 2011 included winning the highly competitive OK World Championship (the class he represented in the Endeavour) as well as the OK National and Inland championship titles – becoming the first sailor to ever hold all three of these titles at the same time. He also won the RS400 National Championship for the fifth time, and the D1 Nationals at his first attempt.

He topped his season off by winning a 5th Endeavour Championships in a fiercely contested event, with possibly unexpected competition from young upcoming sailor James Peters. Winning the Endeavour has long been recognised as an ultimate dinghy racing achievement, so to win it five times, representing different classes throughout the years, puts Nick amongst the most versatile and talented dinghy sailors in the world.

In his speech Craig thanked Mark Jardine and Sue Pelling for nominating him and everyone else for voting for him and amateur sailors up and down the country. After thanking his own sponsor Gill, and Pantaenius for sponsoring the awards, Craig thanked his crews for putting up with him “being a grumpy git in a boat, especially the amazingly talented Toby Lewis, Fiona Clark, James Stewart and Keith Bedborough” with whom he has won 95 per cent of his titles. He also thanked his wife Emma “for putting up with all my dull stories of which way up the beat I went and all the time she’s looked after the kids while I’ve been out sailing.”

Which must have been quite a few times over the years!