Earning his stripes sailing Skiffs from a young age and graduating to Lasers more recently, Joshua King has just been nominated for Queensland Youth Sailor of the Year having achieved a series of successes at both state championships and local regattas over the past two years.
At just 13-years-old, Josh is proving he has the mettle and determination to compete and often pop out of the fleet to dominate a race, showing his worth against other sailors of all ages.
“It’s the competition side of it I love,” explained Josh.
“I am quite competitive myself and the fact that everything with sailing is really close all the time is really cool.
“Anyone can win and it’s super competitive – the difference between first and second can be only a point or less which makes it a really exciting sport.”
Contending in the Laser division of the Queensland State Championships in his first regatta in Bowen last year, Josh came 11th place.
His following competition in Yeppoon later that year, however, was Queensland Youth State Championships and, incredibly he sailed away with second place.
Gaining confidence with every race, Josh went on to compete in as many regional regattas as possible throughout Queensland and consistently achieved top three placements.
Earlier this year at the North Queensland Championships, which were held on his home turf at the Whitsunday Sailing Club, Josh won the entire event with a day to spare.
Bringing this success to the 2022 Queensland State Championships in Brisbane, Josh took out the competition, coming in first place, just one point ahead of the nearest competitor.
“It was light winds so not as many races in as we hoped, but it was really good to get a win at that event, I definitely wasn’t expecting it!” he said.
Josh has recently returned from Youth Sail Queensland in Brisbane with the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron where, despite being in the lead going into the last race, narrowly missed out on a win, coming in second place.
Celebrating achievements and learning from losses, Josh is focusing on fine-tuning his skills, participating in training clinics and preparing himself for the next Youth Championships.
Discovering a love for sailing from a young age when he would jump aboard his dad’s trimaran, you will find Josh part of the crew on M32 competing in this high performance catamaran in the multi hull racing division at this year’s Race Week.
Josh King was recently nominated for Queensland Youth Sailor of the Year
Josh King in action sailing his Laser
