The extraordinary journey of Kai Hockley (former GCA student) was featured in The Observer last weekend.

It highlights how it all started for Kai, the warm welcome given by the sailing community as the school sailing team travelled to events around the country, and how his passion has turned into a career that he could never have imagined without the support of Jon, Sir Ben Ainslie, Hannah Mills and ‘Freddie’ Carr.

“Throughout my time in school I didn’t really think of sailing as a possible career. I just competed. I just wanted to race against everyone,” Kai says . “I didn’t even know there was a pathway, not just because I was from the inner city but because the whole of sailing is kind of hard to navigate.

As part of the shore team for the last 18 months, he is well aware of the hard work that is needed to get to the top spot and join the F50 Emirates GBR team as a grinder.

“It’s not just the physical side but the mental and technical sides, too – SailGP is the same standard as F1.”

“SailGP is really cool and it’s expanding at such a fast rate that I think more opportunities will start opening up for loads of people from loads of different backgrounds, which is the big thing sailing needs.”

This thinking is at the heart of our new strategy. Working together with SailGP and other youth sailing organisations, we are working to support many more young sailors from diverse backgrounds, to showcase that they too will be welcomed and encouraged to find their place in the sailing world.