The Youth Sailing World Championships are not just memorable for what happens on the water, and the 2025 edition is reuniting one competitor with her windsurfing legend of an uncle.
Emilie Wade, 15, is a rising star in Fijian sailing and comes from a family steeped in the sport. Her grandfather, Anthony Colin Philp, is an Olympian who is now President of Oceania Sailing Federation, while Wade is the niece of Tony Philp, who represented Fiji at five Olympics, won 13 individual windsurfing world titles and four overall world crowns.
The apple has not fallen far from the tree and Wade is lining up in the iQFOiL class in Vilamoura, with Philp Jnr ready to offer any words of wisdom from the shore.
“He moved away to France when I was little and this is my first time seeing him for eight years,” Wade said.
“I am too young to have watched him, his events were ages ago! But my parents would talk to me about him and I would hear stories from other people.
“I would just think ‘wow, my uncle is so cool’. Even when we were apart, I kept hearing about him, he is a legend back home.
“All the sailors are like ‘oh yeah, Tony Philp’, and I’m like ‘that’s my uncle’!”
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