| Age: | 23 |
| Place of birth: | Hilversum |
| Residence: | Utrecht |
| Study: | MSc Strategy, Erasmus University |
| Sailing club: | WVZ Zeewolde |
| First victory: | When I was eleven |
| Favorite quote: | Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is |
| Idol: | Ed Baird |
| Where will you be in 5 years ?: | I will be back from the Ocean Race and continue with Dutch Wave |
Humans of Team Dutch Wave
My name is Rutger Vos. I am the mainsail trimmer of Team Dutch Wave. I’m practically born on a sailboat, at a very young age I was already sailing along with my parents on their boat. However it took a bit longer before I started sailing competitively, this was because in my younger years I was more appealed to ball sports like tennis and basketball. By the time I became 10 years old I started sailing regattas with my uncle, who was sailing some small keelboats at that time.
It did not take long before I wanted more and my way of getting more time on the water was by starting sailing the RS Feva, I participated in all national and a few international events for some years. At a certain point, I became too tall for this boat and moved on to the RS 500 and shortly after that even to a brief period in the 49er.
By the time I graduated I wanted to go on to the next challenge, this announced itself in the form of helming the dutch J24 Team Merkmeester with whom I participated in both the nationals and the worlds. During this period I started my study in economics at Utrecht University, and at the end of my first year, I started with the Team Heiner Talents program, which offered us the opportunity to sail on bigger boats under the guidance of top-level sailors like Roy Heiner. In this program, I met a few of the other members of Team Dutch Wave, and we decided to join forces for the youth match racing series during the Australian summer. Mainly due to the sailing I prolonged my studies for an extra year in order to have extra time for sailing and working on boats. My goal is to become a professional sailor, but I still want to finish my studies in order to be able to start a promising career after sailing.
It is amazing to sail with the Team Heiner Talents and Team Dutch Wave. Everyone is working hard to realize the goals. Looking back on the last year I see a huge progression in both the results as well as the development of the team and I am sure there is a lot more to come!