Houston's Wiley Rogers along with his Connecticut teammate Jack Parkin are Youth Sailing World Champions after outsailing the competition at the 46th AON Youth Sailing World Championships last month.
This world competition was held in Auckland, New Zealand December 14-20, 2016, and had more than 380 sailors from 65 nations sailing in more than 260 boats across nine different disciplines.
The boys' credit their disciplined eating strategy, intense training and commitment to the sport for helping them out-race 24 other teams. The boys won five out of nine races at the five-day event to rack up enough points to secure the win.
"We are excited," says Wiley. " The entire 420 class are fierce competitors. Jack and I trained hard for this, and one of our goals was to keep the trophy in the U.S. It feels good to have accomplished that goal."
Having a world champion sailor in the family is not new to the Rogers family. Wiley's brother Zane Rogers was U.S. Team Captain of Team USA who won the Nations Cup at the Optimist World Championship held in Portugal in July of last year.
Wiley and Zane hone their sailing prowess as participants in the youth sailing program at Lakewood Yacht Club located in Seabrook, Texas.
