TWO budding sailors from Penarth got the chance to see the best in the world in action in the Extreme sailing series in Cardiff Bay.

Rhys Lewis (13) and Will Hall (14), are two of Britain’s brightest sailing talents, and the British representative sailors were due to swap their Optimist class boats for 40ft. catamarans but the strong winds meant they were unable to get on to a competing boat.

They watched as The Wave, Muscat from Oman triumphed in Cardiff for the fourth consecutive year.

Will and Rhys managed to spend time observing some of the top sailors in the world at the event which took place from Friday, June 19 to Sunday, June 21.

Both boys competed in the Optimist World Championships last October in Argentina where they were amongst 400 hundred competitors from across the world.

They started sailing at Cardiff Bay Yacht Club under the guidance of club coach, Nick Sawyer and have rapidly risen up the national rankings to become two of the best sailors for their age in the UK.

Cardiff Bay played host to Act four of the Extreme series. The global tour takes place over 11 months in locations from Qingdao, China to Singapore, St. Petersburg to Australia and is now a firm favourite on the Cardiff summer sports calendar.

Visitors can watch eight of the world’s top international sailing teams battle it out over four days with Olympic heroes, America’s Cup winners and Round the World sailing legends going head-to-head.

The event’s reputation is built on the concept of Stadium Sailing – giving fans a real close-up view of the high-performance Extreme 40 catamarans racing, and Cardiff is particularly popular as it provides terrific free family race village entertainment.

This summer’s competition season is just as busy as the last for the Stanwell School boys. Will is going back to Poland to compete in the 2015 Optimist World Championships and Rhys will be competing at the 2015 Optimist European Championships at Plas Heli, Pwllheli, plus many other events around the world and in the UK.