Cameron Tweedle:
Japan in sight
Last year in Valencia, sailor Cameron Tweedle of Carterton finished as the
first under 18 in the Finn Silver Cup U23 World Championship, achieving
24th place overall. A racer in the Olympic Finn Class, he now has both eyes on
the 2020 Olympics in Japan. A few days prior to Cameron winning the NSSA
Handicap Fleet Inlands Championships at Datchet Water Sailing Club, Sam
Bennett went to meet him at Farmoor Reservoir.
It’s hard not to be struck by how big Cameron Tweedle is for 17. “I’ve always been
very big for my age,” he says as we sit in the clubhouse at Oxford Sailing Club. “I’d
move out of a boat because I was too big before I actually managed to excel in it.
A year or 18 months ago I moved into a Finn and that really supports my size and
I’ve managed to excel in that.
“This club has been around for a long time,” he says of our surroundings. “Over
the summer and the holidays they run courses for young people. What used to
happen was the young people would do these week long courses and then have
nothing to do here afterwards. So the club set up Oxford Pirates for us. Every
week we would come and improve our sailing and learn to race.
“I must have been about nine or ten when we first started racing on Sundays.
I think a lot of the older members were threatened because they hadn’t been
pushed by young people before. It had been the same people racing for 15-20
years and it was all new to them. So there was quite a lot of hostility towards us.”
This seems at odds with how peaceful a location I actually find Farmoor Reservoir
to be. It seems though that today the atmosphere is more reflective of such
serenity.
“Now the club really thrives on the younger generation and supports them,”
Cameron continues. “In five or six years there was a complete contrast and you
now have the older generations coming up and volunteering their time to run
Oxford Pirates.”
The night before our meeting Cameron had been coaching the Pirates himself.
“I’ve grown up here, I learnt to sail here, it’s close to my heart,” he tells me. “I’m
very eager to put back into the club what I gained out of it.”
It’s something the A-level student intends to do in time to come too, even once
he’s competed in the Olympics, something that has always been a dream of his.
“I can see myself in 10-15 years’ time, having gone to the Olympics, still returning
and doing as much as I can for the club,” he states.
Evidently grateful to Oxford Sailing, Cameron is also into the second year of his
contract with his sponsor, Maylarch Environmental (maylarch.co.uk). “They’ve
really helped fund the last two years,” he says. “Without them I wouldn’t have
been able to go to Valencia and I wouldn’t be able to compete this year – just due
to the expense of all the travelling and owning a boat.”
I suppose you could say Cameron has immersed himself in an underground sport.
“People don’t expect you to say you’re a campaigning sailor,” he says, “especially
in Oxfordshire. When you’re somewhere coastal it’s a lot more frequent.” First
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