After high winds earlier this week disrupted training plans ahead of the start of the Allianz Sailing World Championships at The Hague, conditions are now set fair for the coming week of Olympic classes action.
From an interest standpoint, Friday will open with racing in the skiff events with three teams in action.
Howth’s Robert Dickson with Sean Waddilove of Skerries along with the more recent pairing of Seafra Guilfoyle with Johnny Durcan, both representing the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven will all compete in the 49er class.
Tralee duo
Ballyholme’s Erin McIlwaine with Ellie Cunnane from Tralee are now fully active in the 49erFX women’s event and effectively make their senior-level debut this week following the cancellation of their racing at the Dutch Olympic classes regatta earlier this summer.
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The return of a women’s skiff team marks a step-up in the performance programme that hasn’t had a team in this event since the Rio 2016 Olympics when Andrea Brewster and Saskia Tidey raced under Irish colours.
Aside from a challenging attempt to switch into the class by Annalise Murphy, before changing back to her favoured Laser Radial (now ILCA6 class) for Tokyo, Ireland has only had active campaigns in three out of the 10 Olympic Sailing disciplines since Rio.
The coming ten days will see all ten events decide their world titles in this once in a quarennial format where they all converge.
Although the championship wins will certainly be coveted as indicators of form — this year — there is a bigger agenda at play in the waters off the Port of Scheveningen.
Each of the 10 will decide the first tranche of nation places for Paris 2024 and this event will have the largest share-out of event places.
While there will be a series of further qualification opportunities over the coming months, getting this task out of the way early is almost as good as a championship win.
For both skiff events, the top 10 boats by nation will earn their countries the right to nominate a team for the games.
Irish Olympic veterans
While McIllwaine and Cunnane could never be expected to contend for an Olympic berth at such an early stage, the stakes are higher in the men’s event where Dickson and Waddilove, as Olympic veterans, could yet see pressure from the second Irish boat in their event.
“The primary goal for the programme is absolutely qualification, there is a sub-plot for the second boats in each class which is a performance goal,” said Irish Sailing’s performance director James O’Callaghan.
The Irish have an added advantage in the 49er event racing on these North Sea waters as their training partners are the Dutch world champions who they have sailed with on their home waters here over the past year.
Meanwhile, the skiff sailors are the only ones with good local knowledge over the coming week. In the ILCA6 women’s event, Eve McMahon celebrated winning gold at The Hague just over a year ago, the first of a hat-trick of world titles won at youth level.
“Eve will be confident in the venue after her experience last year — any experience is good experience,” said O’Callaghan. “She’s familiar with success at this venue but this event is a whole new kettle of fish.”
Like her counterpart Finn Lynch in the men’s ILCA7 single-hander, who tops Irish hopes of nation qualification for Paris, both sailors achieved high results at the recent Olympic test event at Marseilles.
Meanwhile, as hosts, organisers at The Hague venue celebrated at Thursday evening’s opening ceremony as securing this event was a case of third time lucky for a nation that has huge sailing and boating following.
