Armstrong/Gribbin 49er Campaign

Who are we?

We are Fin Armstrong (21) and Ewan Gribbin (23), a pair of sailors from South Devon. We both learnt to sail on the River Dart at age 10 and haven't left the sport since! We spent our teenage years competing against each other in Youth Classes with some notable results from Fin including:

- 2018, 2019 National Champion

- 2019 European Champion

- 4th at the Youth World Championships 2019

(Fin at the 2019 European Championships)

By 2020 we had each aged out of Youth Sailing and decided to team up in the 49er together during the post Covid summer. From the summer of 2020 to the summer of 2023 we have been balancing training and competing with studies at university. We both graduated this summer (Ewan with a masters in Engineering  from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and Fin with a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy at Worcester College, Oxford). During this period we managed to get in some 49er racing with notable results including a 15th at the Junior European Championships 2021 before moving up to the Senior European Championships in 2022. Ewan also represented British Universities in fixtures against Irish Universities and US Universities, and was part of the Cambridge team that were British University Champions in 2023.

Having now graduated, we are trying to pursue our sailing full time. For the past two months we have been training at the National Sailing Academy in Weymouth in preparation for the 2023 European Championships in Portugal. To help fund this, Ewan works as a research assistant looking into ways to decarbonise aviation. Fin in turn coaches some of the top youth sailors and also works part time as a tutor.

Why are we crowdfunding?

High level sailing is expensive. Our part time work covers everyday training costs, but does not stretch far enough for international events. If we are selected into the British Sailing Team we will qualify for National Lottery Funding which will help cover things in the future. However, we need financial support to make the jump onto funding in the first place.

How we’ll spend the money raised

Any money that is raised we will use to help us travel to the European Championships this November in Vilamoura, Portugal, and to help to cover the cost of new equipment to enable us to be competitive when we get there!