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Back to newsA very well-deserved surprise for Mr Holt
8th Dec 2020A huge cheer for Mr Holt, who found out today (8 December) that he is the winner of the YJA MS Amlin ‘International Sailor of the Decade’ Award.
The aim of this YJA MS Amlin award is to recognise the achievements of those who have had the greatest positive impact on sailing.
Mr Holt was one of five sailors shortlisted, a list which also included Dee Caffari, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Sir Ben Ainslie and Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson – all of whom are well known for their outstanding sailing achievements and were previous winners of the YJA ‘Yachtsman of the Year’ Trophy.
This new award was presented in a socially distanced surprise event by the historian and TV presenter Dan Snow of ‘History Hit’, the massively popular online channel. Dan is himself a keen sailor.
Mr Holt was momentarily lost for words but soon recovered his powers of speech to say:
“It feels absolutely extraordinary because I saw the list of who was on there, and I think that we all do different things within sailing, but they have achieved so much. It's quite a shock actually. Maybe it shows how big it is what we're doing with sailing and the young people who we're taking out sailing at weekends."
Clifford Webb, Chairman of the Yachting Journalists’ Association, said:
“It has been fascinating to see the votes arriving over the past month from our members spread around the world. The nominations were made by the public, and the shortlist drawn up was based on the number of nominations each person received. Subsequently, it was the YJA members who considered the five options available to cast their single vote. Voting was close and it may surprise some that the ‘big’ names nominated were not selected, but our well-informed members made their decision one by one, until Jon emerged as the outright winner, and what an achievement it is, absolutely brilliant."
It was good to see the reaction of Tracy Edwards - one of our sailing role models:
This is one of the most deserved awards in sailing ever!! Huge congratulations to Jon Holt. You created @ScaramoucheST from nothing and with your awesome team have achieved the impossible putting the naysaers back in their box! Looking forward to next year @maidenfactor.
