Howth Yacht Club's Aoife Hopkins Stays in Top 20, Finn Lynch 35th at Laser Europeans

6th October 2017

Howth Yacht Club's Aoife Hopkins leads the fleet around the Weather mark in race two of the Laser European Championships in Barcelona Credit: Tom Thow/ILCA

19–year–old Aoife Hopkins from Howth Yacht Club started the her first day in gold fleet at the Laser European Championships in Barcelona with a mid-fleet result in race one followed by a 31st (discarded) in race two. Hopkins currently lies 20th overall in the 90 boat fleet.

Today’s racing started with a postponement, as the gradient wind that had been there from early morning died away. The sailors settled in and waited for the thermal wind to come in eventually launching at 2:30pm to light shifty conditions.

The Irish sailors that had made Gold fleet discovered that the rumours are true – it is indeed tough at the top!

Rio Olympian Finn Lynch from the National Yacht Club in the Men’s standard rig fleet scored a 54th (discarded) and 33rd and currently lies 31st overall in the 125 boat fleet. Ireland only other gold fleet competitor Ronan Wallace in the men’s radial division is currently scored DNC on the score sheet.

A protest yesterday pushed Aisling Keller from Lough Derg Yacht Club into silver fleet in the women’s radial. Aisling scored a 38th and an 18th leaving her 59th overall. Sally Bell in her first senior European event scored a 45th and 44th . In the men’s standard rig Ewan McMahon also in his first senior event enjoyed some racing at the top of silver fleet to score a 12th and a 4th bringing him up the score sheet nicely to 65th overall.

Results are here.

Published in Laser

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About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):