After a disappointing week for both Irish crews competing at 49er World Championship in Lanzarote a final-race second place on Sunday (10 March) for Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove was a welcome early season morale boost.
After a clean start, Dickson (Howth Yacht Club) and Waddilove (Skerries Sailing Club) led the fleet at the first mark but then jousted with the eventual overall winners of the championship for the two laps of the course.
While the score was welcome, it wasn’t enough to lift them from 25th place in the Gold fleet. Meanwhile, at the front, French sailors Erwan Fischer and Clément Péquin maintained their lead to secure their nation’s first world championship in the 49er skiff class. See the overall results HERE.
“The guys are world-class sailors and can perform in a lot of conditions with good starts and they’re very fast,” said Matt McGovern, Irish Sailing’s skiff coach. “We just struggled with a bit of the strategy so we need to get back to the drawing board and look at what we’ve learned from this event.”
Elsewhere, Crosshaven’s Séafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan (Royal Cork Yacht Club) ended their championship in 31st place, narrowly missing their Sport Ireland funding goal of top 30 boats.
An opportunity to protest a Danish rival for a rules infringement wasn’t enough to close the gap on 30th place while racing in the 46-boat Silver fleet.
However, both Irish crews are now on level points after the first of three regattas for the selection trials to determine which crew will take the sole place for Ireland in the men’s skiff event for the Paris 2024 Olympic regatta in Marseille this Summer.
Both crews will be in action again in late April at the French Olympic Week in Hyères, where more than 1,000 sailors will gather for the ‘last-chance regatta’ to decide the remaining nation places for the games.
Ireland has already qualified in all three events that Irish Sailing’s Senior squad trains for, with Eve McMahon and Finn Lynch both confirmed for their respective single-handed events pending nomination by the Olympic Steering Group of Irish Sailing to the Olympic Federation of Ireland.
The skiff trials series will conclude at the start of May with the 49er European Championship at La Grande-Motte near Montpelier.