Penny Clark CV
Published: 15/06/2011
SAILING CV
Penny Clark (nee Mountford) started sailing aged 4 in an Optimist Dinghy in which she won her first National Title aged 8. Outgrowing the Optimist, she moved into a Topper and from 1987 through to 1991 she won several lady’s junior and national titles. Her first major achievement came when she borrowed her father’s Laser dinghy and competed in the 1990 RYA Youth National Championships where she won the Ladies Single Handed title and gained selection as the representative for the Youth World Championships. After this she won the National Youth title a further 3 times, representing Great Britain at the Youth Worlds on each occasion culminating in a 4th during her final year in Italy. Spurred on by the disappointment of missing out on a medal, Penny progressed into the Europe dinghy, the Women’s single handed Olympic class, and began her quest for Olympic selection. Despite winning the National title she was beaten to selection by Shirley Robertson, the now double Olympic Gold medallist.
In 1997 Penny decided to cease her Olympic sailing in order to concentrate on her career in the Royal Navy. Although no-longer competing at Olympic level Penny continued sailing at a high level in several different classes including RS200s, Laser 4000s, Hurricane 5.9s and Hobie Tigers. In 2003 Penny returned to the Olympic scene, this time in the three person keel boat, the Yngling. Olympic selection had already been made for the 2004 Athen’s Olympics and Penny had been asked to sail in the second boat and to provide support to the number one boat helmed by Shirley Robertson.
After the 2004 Olympic Games the classes of boat were changed and the Ladies singlehanded boat was became the Laser Radial – the class in which Penny had had so much success as a Youth. Penny switch to the Laser and won the very first National Ranking event in 2005. After winning several medals at International Events she put her Naval career on hold and went full time in order to gain selection for the Olympic Games. At the end of 2007 her husband also took a career break in order to coach her through the Olympic trials and in early 2008 she gained selection and represented Great Britain at the Beijing Olympics where she finished 10th.
After a brief return to the Royal Navy Penny once again set out on the quest for Olympic glory, this time switching to the Women’s double handed class in which she thinks she is more suited. She has teamed up with Katrina Hughes and they have already achieved top ten results at the last two World Championships and have now stepped up onto the Podium at the recent 2011 Miami World Cup Event. They are currently ranked 4th in the World, No. 1 in Great Britain and lead the 2011 World Cup Series.
Penny lives with her husband in Lee-on-the-Solent who is a Flight Commander in the Royal Navy.