Patricia Gill, Denmark Bulletin

Henri Bellanger faces giant challenges this year to take part in two international youth sailing championships.

Henri will have turned 18 when he and crew, Mia Waters, 16, from Esperance, face the competition in Portsmouth, England in July and the other event in Portugal in December.

They qualified for world participation by winning the Australian Nacra 15 Youth National Championships at Lake Macquarie early this month.

For the past two years, Henri has sailed a youth Olympic catamaran class Nacra 15 after learning as a nine-year-old in a Mirror dinghy and later graduating to a Windrush 14 at 16 years.

In the early stages Henri sailed with his father, Justin, a keen competitive sailor who taught him the ropes.

Henri recalls days spent as a young child at the River Mouth in Denmark playing in the shade under the trampolines of catamarans while his dad sailed.

Justin got his son into racing at State championships, starting when Henri was about 10.

To make the Nacra 15 class in the Youth Sailing World Championships from December 11-16 in Vilamoura, Portugal, Henri and Mia had to beat Sam Dalton who made it to last year’s event in Portugal after knocking out Henri and his former crew in second place.

In late 2024, they were knocked out of world contention at Lake Macquarie in New South Wales by Sam and his previous crew.

So, this year’s qualifying Youth National Championships at Lake Macquarie early this month was the decider where Henri and Mia beat their opponents and qualified for the Portugal event.

This also meant a stint at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra with Sailing Australia for training and focusing on goal setting, performance, psychology and nutrition and how to balance these.

A stand-out for Henri was learning team dynamics and how to run a sailing team.

Over the season, Henri has taken part in Perth sailing events plus two and a half weeks of ‘solid block’ training at Esperance but, as he says, much of sailing is self-driven.

At the Portugal event only the top teams from each class compete in 11 events at the Youth Sailing World Championships from six classes.

Henri is taking a gap year working for the Shed Company Denmark but hopes to eventually study naval architecture, a course not offered in many places in Australia.

He also looks forward to the Nacra 15 Youth Sailing World Championships in Portsmouth in July, his first European sailing event.

This article appeared in Denmark Bulletin, 23 April 2026.